


Escape Me Never

by Gabrielle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-08
Updated: 2010-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:30:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabrielle/pseuds/Gabrielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if no one had been there to save Willow when Angelus grabbed her in the hall?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Escape Me Never (Prologue)

  
It was another Sunday afternoon in Sunnydale, California. The citizens were enjoying the day, seemingly oblivious to the fact that each one of them was lucky to have survived another night. They were blissfully unaware of the forces that ruled their town when night fell and the sun no longer lit the dark corners of their world, and they seemed destined to remain that way. Especially on days like today. Peaceful, sunny days. Children were riding their bicycles; pedestrians thronged the sidewalks outside the busy shops and restaurants in the center of town; cars made their way to the beach or other places of amusement. It was a picture-postcard day; no work, no school, no cares, no worries.

To anyone walking past Sunnydale High, all looked as it should. The parking lot was empty, the buildings appeared deserted, even the janitors were home with their families and friends, enjoying the weekend, before the sharp sound of school bells and the roar of teenage hordes made this a bustling center of activity once more.

But if anyone had been inclined to peer through the windows of the school library, they would have seen that all was not so quiet and empty as it seemed. For the school was not entirely deserted after all. No, there were four people solemnly gathered amidst the desks and bookcases; four people who knew too much about the true nature of Sunnydale; about the forces that ruled it; and about the danger that lurked in every corner. They had come on foot, not wanting their vehicles to give away their presence to spying eyes, and they had come with a purpose. They had one chance, one hope, though it was a faint one, to save one of their own from the clutches of the darkest evil that dwelt in their midst.

The Slayer, her Watcher, a gypsy, and a best friend sat in a circle, the tools of a once-lost spell at its center. They were silent, too afraid to speak of what they feared most. That they would fail. That they were too late. That their friend was lost to them forever. So they kept quiet. But for a moment, the panic took over as Buffy, Giles, and Xander looked at each other, then looked away. The sight of their terror reflected in each other’s eyes was too much. It threatened to break the composure and focus they needed to make this work. To be the heroes who saved the day for the most innocent and least deserving of a terrible fate of any of them, the heroes who came to Willow’s rescue, a rescue which they hoped against hope was not too late already. So all eyes focused on Jenny, trying desperately to believe that the daughter of the people who had cursed Angel to begin with had the strength to curse him again.

If she felt the weight of her mission, Jenny gave nothing away. She appeared utterly calm, as if she were performing an everyday task. She looked down, mentally tallying what sat before her, then visibly centered herself. With a barely perceptible nod, she motioned for Giles to start the spell.

“Quod perditum est. Invenietur.”

“Not dead, nor not of the living. Spirits of the interrignum I call.”

As the power worked its way through Jenny Calendar, a vampiress in a mansion at the other end of town began to shriek and wail. Her worst fear was coming to pass and it could not be stopped. Drusilla slumped to the floor as the spell was completed, helpless in the face of the forces which were taking her sire away from her. The soul of a vampire had been restored. Angelus was Angel once more.

  
End Prologue


	2. Chapter One

Escape Me Never (Chapter One)

  
Angel felt as though he was coming to after having been knocked unconscious. His thoughts were foggy and confused and he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Bits and pieces, fragments of incidents and conversations, came rushing into his brain, but he could make no sense of them. His last clear memory was of a searing pain ripping through him as he lay in bed next to Buffy.

Their lovemaking had been sweet, so tender and human that he had forgotten that he was a vampire, a demon, a cursed thing. He had felt like a man, the man his love deserved, and it had given him a sense of peace he thought he’d never find after everything he had been and done. Then came the pain, and then the nothingness, the nothingness that, with growing horror, he realized had not been nothingness at all. He had lost his soul; Angelus had been set free.

The sound of a heartbeat and a soft, tuneless humming drew his eyes to a corner of the dark bedroom he found himself in. If he were human, the darkness might have concealed from him the small shape huddled in the corner, but he was a vampire and his eyes caught the faint glow of red hair as if it were a candle while his nostrils filled with the scents of innocence and vanilla, picking them out from the strands of surrender, pain, and sex with which they were mingled. Red hair and innocence. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t. . .

But it was. His eyes and his sense of smell weren’t deceiving him. Willow Rosenberg was here in this cold, dark room, shivering against the chill in a thin silk shift. She had obviously been kept here for Angelus’ pleasure and the thought of what she must have endured was like a knife in his heart. As his memories began to tell him the tale of how she had come to be here and what he had done to her, Angel walked towards the girl in the corner... towards Willow.

  
 _He couldn’t believe his luck. Here he was at good guy central, Sunnydale High, and not only did Angelus’ senses tell him that the slayer wasn’t here, but her two closest pals, Willow and Xander, were all alone in the darkened school hallway, like two stray lambs waiting for a wolf to happen by. And wouldn’t you know it? He’d just gotten his fangs back. Some nights it was just great to be undead._

“Willow. Xander.” He schooled his voice to sound like that of his sniveling, souled counterpart.

“Angel. Thank God you’re okay.”

Angelus almost bit through his tongue stifling the laughter that bubbled up at Willow’s unbelievable naivete. Imagine. Thanking God on behalf of a vampire. Sure, it was probably just a figure of speech, but still. . .

“Did you see Buffy?”

“Yeah. What’s up with the lights?” Those two crazy kids obviously had no idea he was back to his old self again; still, he figured he’d best forestall any suspicions about the source of the darkness he himself had created. Clumsy though his question was, and he almost winced the second the words left his mouth, they didn’t seem the least bit wary of him. Xander was an idiot, of course, and probably had a hard time even *spelling* the word ‘demon,’ but Willow was brilliant, at least in terms of book learning and computers. You’d have thought she’d be more careful, what with him being a *vampire* and all. Soulboy must have done more damage to his demonic credibility than he’d ever believed possible. Too bad he couldn’t torture that damn soul until he begged for death. Guess being back in charge would have to do by way of revenge.

“I don’t know. Listen, I think I have an idea.”

And once again Angelus had to fight to keep from dissolving in laughter. Doughnut-boy had an idea? What could that possibly be? A new way to make himself the laughingstock of Sunnydale? The idea of Xander even thinking at all was almost impossibly hilarious. With a source of amusement like this around, why the hell was the damn soul so depressed all the time? You’d think the court jester over there could have inspired a *bit* of mirth in the King of Brood. The soul was well and truly a worthless pussy.

“Forget about that now. I’ve got something to show you.” Yeah, a *real* vampire, Angelus thought to himself, and your own death.

“Show us?”

There was that sweet, innocent voice again. Willow.

Angelus pondered for a moment. While the idea of tearing Xander’s throat out and leaving his dismembered corpse for Buffy to find had a certain winsome charm, perhaps that would be the wrong approach here. There might be a better way of celebrating his return.

“Xander, go get the others.”

“Okay.” The gullible moron loped off to the library, leaving Angelus alone with his prey, the girl who would help make his first night back after a hellishly long time in captivity to a gypsy curse a memorable one.

“And Willow, c’mere.”

“What is it, Angel?” She stepped into the shadows where he stood, so trusting. Watching her walk guilelessly into his trap was more erotically satisfying than anything that had happened with the Slayer. How Soulboy had gotten his rocks off with all that kissy-kissy, lovey-dovey crap was a mystery to Angelus. *This*? Innocence offering itself to be corrupted and devoured? Now *that* was what got a *demon* off.

“It’s amazing.”

He struck before she had a chance to figure out her mistake, grabbing her and muffling her scream with a hand over her mouth. His other hand had a more pleasant time of it, getting a feel for the surprisingly alluring attributes the shy young thing kept carefully hidden. Well, Angel had gotten some tonight, it was only fair that Angelus should get some, too. With that thought, he sank his fangs into Willow’s throat, taking just enough blood to render her insensible. Now it was time to head out before the cavalry returned and found that the fair hacker and the friendly vampire were nowhere to be seen. Wonder how long it would take them to figure out that the Slayer’s puppy had slipped his leash?

Angel wanted to sob; to beg Willow’s forgiveness; to find a stake, hand it to her, and let her take her revenge. But he knew that would be self-serving, an escape for him and of no use to her. Right now she needed him to get her out of this place and back to her family and friends. His senses told him that his childer and minions had fled - though he wasn’t sure they would stay away - making Willow safe from the rest of his clan for the time being, but she was obviously weak after her long ordeal and would never be able to make it home on her own.

He reached out and touched her shoulder. “Willow? Willow, it’s me, Angel.”

She looked up at him and Angel’s heart sank. Her eyes were almost blank. There wasn’t even the fear he would have expected to see considering the fact that, soul or no, he wore the face of her captor. She looked up at him curiously, cocked her head to one side, and then. . .then she did something that Angel never expected. She smiled.

  
 _“What’s the matter, Willow darlin’? You’re not smiling. Aren’t you glad to see me?”_

Angelus smirked at the prisoner cowering beneath his gaze. Her fear was aphrodisiacal and he considered postponing the evening’s ‘entertainment’ so he could spend some time demonstrating just what he enjoyed most about her, just why she was still alive. But he steeled his resolve and reined in his desire. There would be plenty of time for that later. Right now, he had a gift for his lovely concubine waiting downstairs. After the evening’s amusement, she would assuredly be in a generous and receptive mood. He could hardly wait to teach a grateful and compliant Willow even more of what she needed to know to please him completely. She was already so close to being the perfect toy. Tonight would be just what he needed to smooth out all the rough edges and make her into exactly what he wanted.

“Here, put this on.” He handed Willow a thick satin robe, far too large for her and obviously masculine. Obviously his. He wanted their ‘intimacy’ to be unmistakable when they made their entrance.

“Come along.” He held out his hand, beckoning her to take it, and she did. She shook with her nervousness and Angelus felt himself grow hard. Oh well. At least there was an outlet for his frustration waiting downstairs in the dining room.

Arm in arm, they entered the grand and well-appointed room where Spike, Drusilla, and a few ranking minions were waiting. . . along with a very special guest. Angelus crowed inwardly as Willow gasped in surprise and horror when she saw the girl, bound and gagged, standing almost on tiptoe as she hung from chains hooked to the ceiling.

“So nice of you to join us this evening, Cordelia. Let me introduce you to everyone.” Angelus made a sweeping motion with his hand towards all the occupants of the room, then gestured to each in turn. “Spike you may have met before. Drusilla.” He indicated the lovely vampiress in full game face who curtsied prettily from where she stood behind Spike’s chair. “My staff,” he made a desultory gesture towards the minions, who bowed their heads respectfully. “And of course you’ve known my darling Willow for many years now.”

It was time for the fun to begin.

“Willow, my dear,” Angelus said, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it in an extravagant manner, “Would you say that you and Cordelia are friends?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Cordelia’s desperate expression as she silently pleaded with Willow to say whatever would spare her life. Foolish girl. He’d had Willow for several weeks now. Weeks in which he had taught the girl obedience with ruthless efficiency. His pet knew better than to lie to him. She would hate herself even as she spoke, but she would tell him the truth.

“No.”

Her voice was soft. So soft that no one but Angelus could hear it. Not good enough. He put his hand under her chin, tilting her head up to meet his gaze.

“What was that, sweetheart?”

“No,” she said, louder this time, though her voice shook and tears swam in her eyes. “No, Cordelia isn’t my friend.”

“I thought not.” His smile was insidious and his eyes belied the gentlemanly manner he affected. They sparkled with cruelty and mischief. Now the party would begin in earnest.

“This won’t do. As I’m sure you can see, Cordelia, Willow is very special to me. I cannot allow anyone who has hurt her or made her unhappy to get away with that. Certainly you can understand that, can’t you?”

He circled the terrified cheerleader calmly, almost lazily, his voice even, his manner continuing pleasant and genteel. It was a treat to watch confusion and fright twist and distort Cordelia’s features, obliterating their usual prettiness and making her look like an animal caught in a trap, desperate for escape. He wondered if she would chew her own hand off if need be. . . hmmm.

No, as entertaining as that might be, it was both too uncertain and too slow to play out for Angelus’ taste. He had something more showy and spectacular in mind for the spoiled brat’s role in the evening’s festivities, something with a bit more ‘audience participation’ as well. After all, the scent of Willow’s fear had left him hard and wanting. The least Cordelia Chase could do to repay his hospitality was ease the ache of waiting for his pet’s favours.

Angel’s knees almost buckled at the memory of that night. The night he’d succeeded in breaking Willow, forcing her to watch as he and his childer had raped and tortured the cheerleader while he demanded that Willow tell him of every wrong Cordelia had committed against her, every cruel word, every painful slight, using them as his ‘justification’ for the unspeakable atrocities he visited on the girl. And visiting a burden of guilt on Willow that was beyond her capacity to bear.

He looked down at his demon’s victim once more, steeling himself for the blank stare and vacant smile that adorned her lovely face. The inquisitiveness and energy that had once been so much a part of her that it seemed impossible to eradicate them were gone. The wheels he’d been accustomed to see turning behind her eyes were still. And it was all his fault. He may not have been in control, but Angelus had used _his_ friendship with Willow and the knowledge that he had gained of her to turn this bright, lively, innocent girl into a shell, a shadow, a blasphemous mockery of herself, an even more cruelly twisted version of the person she once was than Drusilla.

Angel knelt beside Willow and took her in his arms, unable to stop the tears from falling as he clung to the unresisting girl. Somehow, he would make this right. What he had done, he must also be capable of undoing. Angel wouldn’t rest until he had repaired the damage he had caused. Willow had to be made whole again. She had to be.

  
Tbc...


	3. Chapter Two

Escape Me Never (Chapter Two)

Dawn was breaking and the mansion was eerily quiet. The angry voices trying to keep low had gone silent and Angel could pick up the sound of three softly snoring humans; they had fallen into a fitful sleep after staying awake all night arguing over what to do about Willow and waiting fearfully to see if Angel’s childer or minions returned. One of his erstwhile houseguests was still awake, though. Buffy.

“What did you do to her?”

She walked up beside him as he stood gazing at Willow, who was sleeping peacefully in the bed she had once shared with Angelus, her sweet face so untroubled in repose.

Angel glanced over at Buffy. “Everything, Buffy. Everything you can imagine.”

Buffy flinched and looked away, both from her slumbering friend and from Angel. He wondered what she was thinking. She didn’t seem angry the way he had expected; she seemed hurt, and that was a puzzle. But it wasn’t one he was going to think about now. He was more worried about Willow. About what would become of her when the others awoke. He knew they were sure she’d be better off with them; knew Jenny had offered to keep her at her house ‘til she was well enough that her parents could be given the news that their missing daughter had miraculously turned up alive and safe; knew Giles and Xander and Buffy were in favour of _anything_ that took Willow out of the hands of the vampire whose demon had killed Cordelia and kept Willow captive.

But they didn’t understand, didn’t realize, were too blinded by their own anger and guilt and hatred to see that Willow _needed_ Angel. Even after witnessing Willow’s panic and terror when they tried to coax her out of the bedroom, even after seeing the way she clung to Angel and shrank from _them_ , they were hellbent on taking her away. It had taken Willow’s screams as she held fast to the bedpost while Giles tried to pry her hands loose to make them even consider the idea of staying at the mansion for the night and trying to sort things out in the morning. He only hoped he could make them see reason.

Willow stirred and made a fretful noise. Buffy had left the room and it was all Angel could do to keep from crawling into bed beside Willow, his need to hold her and comfort her was overwhelming. The knowledge that being caught in bed with her would surely result in his being staked was the one thing strong enough to keep him away. It had only been Jenny Calendar’s certainty that the soul restoration had worked, after all, which had kept him from being dusted already. As much as Willow might need him near her now, he would be no good to her as ash. So he kept his distance, hoping she could at least sense his presence, that she knew he hadn’t abandoned her.

He knew she was aware that he had changed, that he had his soul now. Why that hadn’t shattered the twisted bond Angelus had created with her he wasn’t sure, but it hadn’t. On either side. As much as he tried to deny it, he felt for her, felt things that he tried to ascribe to the lingering influence of his demon, but he felt them all the same. Still, as much as he knew he should leave the room and shun temptation, he stayed. Keeping watch over Willow. And remembering.

 _“They won’t be coming for you, my sweet.”_

Angelus whispered into Willow’s ear as he stroked the soft flesh of her cheek, an obscene pretense of tenderness that did more to break his little toy than all the tools in his torture chamber, and didn’t he know it. He ran his eyes lasciviously down her nude body, supine beside him

“You’re mine, sweet Willow. And your friends all know that. They know where you spend your days and what you do for me. Why do you think they haven’t come here and tried to rescue you? They know what you are, who you belong to, and they hate you for it.” Angelus went on, his voice as soothing as a lover’s, belying the cruelty of his words.

“Do you think Xander could ever forgive you for being a vampire’s whore? For opening your mouth and your legs for me? For screaming so beautifully when I make you come? Do you think Giles could ever look at you without wondering about all the things I’ve taught you? Without that dark side of him wanting to see for himself just what I find so attractive about you? Do you think Buffy could ever forgive you for being chosen over her? That she could ever stop hating you for pleasing me more than she ever pleased Angel? Don’t delude yourself, little one. They’ve abandoned you. I’m all you have now. You belong to me. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be happy.”

Angelus moved over Willow’s body again. Even though he’d had her just a short while ago, he was definitely ‘up’ for another go ‘round. He ran a fang lightly across her breast, enjoying the moan he elicited and the moisture he could smell pooling between Willow’s thighs. Her body was so conditioned to his desires now, so responsive to the pain he enjoyed inflicting. It was glorious to have a bed partner who enjoyed what he enjoyed, who was so well trained to cater to his needs. Sure, it hadn’t always been easy, but the time and effort had been well spent. Willow was ready whenever he desired her and her body responded how he wanted it to respond to whatever he wanted to do to her.

Of course, she had a bit of a ways to go before she was everything she could be. There was still the matter of her mental and emotional resistance to her fate, to the fact that she was his and her reason for existence was to serve him in whatever way he wished, but he’d conquer that. He’d known she was the most intellectual toy he’d ever chosen and that her mind would be a challenge to his skill and determination. But after all, he thought as he slid into her tight, wet cunt and relished the feeling of her heat surrounding his cock, he did so dearly love a challenge.

Angel shook off the memory, not wanting to dwell on the pleasure he’d experienced with Willow, and his thoughts went, instead, to the four people in his living room. They’d burst into his mansion last night acting like brave warriors ready to do battle. Where the hell had that fire been before? Weeks ago, when it might have done some good. When they might have rescued Willow before she was completely broken.

Buffy had been leading the charge, playing the role of avenger, but why hadn’t she led the charge while Angel was still a soulless demon? He started to wonder about his “great love.” She was The Slayer. Her mission was supposed to come before her personal safety. Sure, she had managed to survive this long as a Slayer on an active hellmouth, but what did that mean? How could that be an accomplishment if it came at the cost of the lives she was supposed to save, the people she was supposed to protect? He wondered if the brave, selfless girl he had fallen in love with had even existed. Wouldn’t that girl have done _anything_ to rescue a friend who had risked her life alongside her so many times?

No matter where his thoughts led him, the result was anguish.

 _She stayed perfectly still as he sketched. Angelus enjoyed his ability to make this girl, who had always been so fidgety and energetic, stay motionless, though he enjoyed even more the ways he could make her move. It was all about power and control and damn if it didn’t feel *good*._

His practiced hand drew the lines and contours before him, changing the pose and scenery, of course. He remembered the way she’d looked hanging from chains in her schoolgirl clothes and transformed it into the image of her nude body in the same position. Then he added the marks of the lash and the branding iron he’d never actually used on her. Oh sure, he’d *wanted* to, damn badly in fact. It had taken a restraint he almost could not believe he was capable of to keep from marking that beautiful skin, to keep from making Willow scream her agony to the empty heavens. As badly as he longed to torture his captive, however, he’d realized that fear was so much worse than almost any torture. And it was the fear of what he *might* do that would make her obedient. The first step in turning Willow Rosenberg into the ideal human pet.

He’d left her hanging in the very chains he was portraying her in for a whole night and day after taking her prisoner, letting her fear build into something grotesque and terrifying as she listened to him torturing and killing the surrogate he’d had the minions bring home for him to play with instead in an adjoining room. Then he simply let Willow down, the warning implicit as he escorted her to his chambers. She had not made him regret his self-discipline. So acquiescent. So deferential. Her tear-filled eyes cast down as she obeyed his every politely-worded command.

“Willow, please undress.”

“Willow, please turn around slowly and let me look at you.”

“Willow, please come here to me and kneel.”

Just the memories of that first time nearly distracted him from his task. For a shy little virgin who had never even been kissed, she’d proved herself a natural on her knees. All that babbling must have been very good exercise; it certainly seemed to have readied her mouth for a far more pleasant use than conversation.

There. The sketch was complete. Now he could indulge in a brief taste of his pet’s special talents before heading out to bestow his latest work on those who certainly must be wondering what had been going on in Willow’s life since she’d been taken from their midst. Of course, it wasn’t exactly an accurate rendition of what he’d done to their friend, but he was an artist and had to be allowed creative license, didn’t he?

“Willow, my dear, come and thank me for allowing you the honour of being my model.”

There was still some stubbornness about his pet, some refusal to accept her place, as evidenced by the shine of tears swimming in her eyes and the angry blush that pinked her skin, but he pushed his annoyance aside. She looked so lovely as her mouth moved up and down on his cock; it was just too difficult to stay upset with her. At least right now.

Noise from downstairs roused Angel from his thoughts. Voices were starting to rise and Angel could tell that all of his “guests” were awake once more. He just hoped they didn’t come up here and disturb Willow; she’d been through so much. She needed some peace.

She was still sleeping; Angel was glad of that. Slumber undisturbed by Angelus’ incessant sexual demands was something she hadn’t had since before she’d been taken captive. He hoped her dreams didn’t take her back to her place beside his demon, but he knew that was likely a vain, foolish fancy. He doubted her subconscious was any less bound up in his alter ego than her waking mind was. If there was one thing Angelus was, it was entirely thorough. When he did something, he went all the way. Breaking Willow was not a task he’d heedlessly or carelessly leave unfinished. No, Angel was heartbreakingly certain that as she slept, Willow was as lost in her memories of Angelus as Angel had been only a few moments ago. Still, any sleep, even a sleep filled with dreams of his demon, was better for her than another confrontation with her self-styled rescuers.

The conversation the others were having was growing heated. The pieces of it that Angel picked up alarmed him. It was time to go down there and make them all see reason, to make them see past their hatred of him and do what was best for Willow. To make them realize that the only one capable of healing the damage to their friend was the souled version of the one who had caused it. Willow needed to stay with Angel if there was any hope for her to ever be _Willow_ again.

He turned and left the bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. As he walked down the stairs, he could hear Xander.

“Why are we even talking about this? I say we stake Deadboy like we should have done a long time ago. Have you forgotten what that bastard did to Cordelia? Willow will be better off when he’s dust. We all will.”

“You’re so caught up in your need for revenge that Willow doesn’t matter to you at all, does she, Xander?” Angel spoke from the shadows, surprising everyone. “I know that you hate me. You have every right to hate me. But staking me won’t help Willow. You saw her last night. Like it or not, she needs me. Without me, she’s never going to be the same.”

He looked into the faces before him and saw stone. They didn’t understand. They thought he was just trying to save his own skin. Trust them to think that he was just like them.

He pushed down the bitterness in his thoughts lest it bleed into his words. The last thing he needed was to antagonize the ones who fancied themselves Willow’s best friends. Though he’d fight them tooth and nail if need be to keep Willow with him so he could take care of her, he’d prefer to have them see sense.

“Angelus made himself the center of Willow’s world, broke her down and made her completely dependant on him. That isn’t going to change overnight. She knows my soul has been restored, but I’m also the closest thing there is to Angelus and right now she needs that to feel safe. She needs to be weaned off her dependance and to be helped to regain her sense of self and who she is gradually, and by someone she trusts. Right now, that’s me.”

He almost pleaded with them with his eyes, begging them to see the sincerity in his words. Buffy had her hand on Xander’s shoulder, trying to calm him, but she wouldn’t meet Angel’s gaze. Jenny had her arms around Rupert, her face buried in his chest; he could smell her tears and knew she was crying. Perhaps that meant that he’d gotten through to her. He could only hope.

The Watcher spoke, shattering the uncomfortable silence that followed Angel’s speech. “Why should we trust you, vampire?”

Angel struggled to find the right words. “I know you only see me as a killer right now, Rupert, but I have my soul again. You gave it back to me yourselves. I am sorrier than you will ever know for what Angelus did. I wish I could undo all of it, but I can’t bring Cordelia back. I _can_ do everything in my power to help Willow, to bring her back from the emotional hell that Angelus left her in. I’m the only one who has any chance of making her whole again and there isn’t anything I won’t do to make that happen.”

He looked around. They were listening. Good. He tried another, more practical tack.

“I’m also the only one of you who can be with her all day and all night. None of the rest of you can. Buffy and Xander have school, and you, Rupert, have to work. So does Jenny. You live with your families or surrounded by neighbors, all of whom would certainly notice that Willow was staying with you. What would happen if word got back to Willow’s parents? If they found her like this, they’d stick her in a mental hospital. Where she’d be labeled delusional and sedated into catatonia if she tried to tell the truth about what happened to her. Is that what you want for her? After everything she’s been through, does she deserve to spend the rest of her life in a hell even worse than where she already is?”

He’d gotten through to them. At least to Giles and Jenny. Xander still gave off nothing but anger and hate. Buffy looked . . . Angel didn’t want to put any stock in his assessment of what he saw in Buffy’s eyes. No matter what he’d come to realize about her in the past few hours, he wasn’t ready to believe she was quite that selfish.

“Your childer, your minions.”

“They’re gone, Rupert. They won’t be a problem.” Angel’s voice held a certainty that brooked no disagreement and Giles seemed to accept his assertion, at least for now.

“We will be here all the time, make no mistake. And if anything further happens to that poor girl, I will make you beg for death before I ram a stake through your miserable, undead heart.”

Angel didn’t attempt to argue or defend himself. “Agreed.”

“Come along, Buffy, Xander. I’ll make your excuses to the school and your parents. I think we all need to go home for a short while. Get some sleep. We’ll be no good to Willow like this.”

Both Buffy and Xander looked ready to protest, but a look from Giles silenced them both.

“I am no more happy with this arrangement than you are, but I am satisfied that Willow will be safe for the time being. We’ll come back tonight. Perhaps she’ll be in the frame of mind to see us then.”

Maybe their fatigue was too overwhelming for them to put up much of a fight. At any rate, Buffy and Xander held their peace, contenting themselves with glaring at Angel while they gathered their things.

Giles took Jenny’s hand and squeezed it, obviously drawing strength from his lover. He shepherded the two teens outside before following them with Jenny. He looked back once, his icy stare promising everything his words had and more, before he made his way wearily homeward.

When the sound of their footsteps had faded away, Angel went back upstairs. Willow was his charge now, and she needed him.

  
Tbc...


	4. Chapter Three

Escape Me Never (Chapter Three)

Buffy was here. Again.

She wanted to help her friend, he got that. But how could she not see what her visits did to Willow? That her friend shrank from her touch and clung to Angel when she was in the room. Whether it was because Willow subconsciously feared what Buffy would think of her for the part Angelus had forced her to play in Cordelia's brutal death or because she harbored repressed anger towards Buffy for leaving her in Angelus' clutches for so long, Angel couldn't say. But it was obvious to anyone with eyes that she didn't want to be anywhere near her friend. Obvious, that is, to anyone but Buffy.

“All I’m saying, Angel, is that I think Willow would be better off staying with Miss Calendar. It’s been a week already and I don’t think she’s going to get back to her old self again staying with you.”

“Are you listening to yourself, Buffy?” Angel asked as he struggled to maintain his composure. “Willow’s endured a kind of torment you cannot begin to imagine. You can’t expect her to bounce back in a few days. And besides, she is doing better. She spoke yesterday. She just needs time.”

Buffy looked skeptical and challenged him again. “Angel, I know she’s been through a lot, but...”

Angel cut Buffy off.

“Been through a lot? You don’t know the half of it. She was subjected to the kind of mind games that drove Drusilla completely insane. She was forced to watch while Cordelia was raped and tortured by Angelus, Spike, and god knows how many minions. She experienced pain and humiliation and anguish on every possible level. A lot? Yeah, Buffy, I guess you could say that Willow has been through a lot.”

‘And she might not have gone through the worst of it if you could have been bothered to try to rescue her.’ The venomous thought took Angel only slightly by surprise; he’d been rethinking his image of Buffy since the night he’d regained his soul. What really surprised him was the lack of guilt he felt for thinking it and the fact that he felt none of the rush of emotion he used to feel in Buffy’s presence. The love, the passion, the desire, they weren’t there. But he supposed that days and nights spent trying to heal the very friend his ‘great love’ paid too-late lip service to caring about because _she_ hadn’t done her job might well have killed even the strongest passion ever felt. If Buffy had been more Slayer and less self-important teenager, maybe Willow would be at home working on her computer right now.

 _Angelus drew a finger through the dust that had collected on Willow’s bookshelves and gave a disapproving glare towards the door of her room. Really. It looked as though her parents hadn’t entered their daughter’s room since she disappeared._

The bed was neatly made. No mother had sat upon it, clutching her daughter’s pillow and sobbing. The undisturbed dust around the framed pictures showed that no father had come in and picked them up, thinking about the little girl he missed. No, he’d wager that the door to this room had not been opened since Willow had left her house to go back to the high school the night he’d taken her.

Where were they now, those parents of hers? Worthless wretches. How in the hell was he supposed to finish teaching Willow her place without being able to present their broken, lifeless bodies to her as a gift? Oh well, he supposed that *was* a bit of a cliche. After all, he’d done that with Drusilla and where had it gotten him? Stuck with a self-absorbed loony whose chief value lay in visions she never seemed able to communicate coherently half the time. Perhaps it was just as well that the two thoughtless fools who’d borne his pet were away from home tonight.

He looked around Willow’s girlish room for a moment, losing himself in some of Soulboy’s memories. The night she’d first invited him in. Ah, the rush of guilty lust that eunuch of a soul had felt when he’d seen her quickly hide that virginal white bra. But had he even made the smallest advances on the girl? No. He’d moaned about the Slayer. Now that’s the way to seduce a fair maiden, Angel m’boy. Ask for her help with her best friend. No wonder Angel hadn’t gotten any in so long that even his hand had forgotten what to do.

Then there were all the nights that pussy had stood on the balcony as Willow slept. ‘Making sure she was safe.’ Yeah. You tell yourself that, oh souled one. But why, pray tell, did making sure she was safe require watching her sleep for half an hour or more? When she was safely in her house, well away from any of Sunnydale’s vampires . . . except for him, of course. Not that Angel had ever had the balls to go in and ravish the girl, or even admit that he *wanted* to . . . pathetic.

Oh well. Time to head back and spend a bit of quality time with his pet. At least he had some small proof of Willow’s parents’ utter lack of devotion to take home with him. You’d think they could at least have bothered to feed her fish. He took a decorative box off her dresser, dumping out the junk jewelry and pointless mementos it contained. It made a nice coffin, he thought as he scooped up the fish that floated lifelessly at the top of their tank and placed them neatly inside the cheap little trinket box . He couldn’t wait to see the look on Willow’s face when she saw her gift. It wasn’t the corpse of someone she cared about, but for tonight, it would have to do.

Angel shook himself free of the memory. He softened when he saw the look of horror and sympathy on Buffy’s face. Maybe he was being too harsh in his assessment of her. Maybe she didn’t deserve all the blame he had placed on her. After all, he supposed, they might all have decided that restoring his soul was the best way to get Willow back and it had just taken more time than they had hoped.

“Did he...was Willow...with Spike and...?”

“No, Buffy. Angelus kept her for his own use. Not that it made her life any less degrading. Believe me, he did more than enough damage to her all by himself.”

He thought he saw something akin to jealousy for a split second in Buffy’s eyes, but it was gone quickly and he decided it hadn’t been there at all. For all her self-centeredness, he couldn’t conceive of her being so heartless. Her friend had been held captive and forced into a degrading and horrible sexual slavery, not wooed and seduced in some sort of decadent fantasy world. She couldn’t possibly resent and envy Willow’s fate. Buffy had to know that what Willow had experienced had been nothing like the lovemaking she had shared with _him_. ‘No, nothing like it all,’ a voice inside him whispered. He shivered at the feelings his demon revived within him.

In the meantime, Buffy had obviously found more ammunition for her argument in his words.

“Don’t you see, Angel? That’s why she needs to be with Miss Calendar. She’s not going to get better here. As long as she stays with you, she’ll just be reminded of all the terrible things he put her through.”

Angel ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. There was no reasoning with her. She was bound and determined to take Willow away from him. Never mind what was best for Willow. Never mind that the reasons he’d given for why Willow should stay with him were still good ones.

“Buffy, I’m not going to argue about this with you. Willow is staying here, where she’s safe and I can take care of her. Jenny has agreed to it, Giles has agreed to it, and that’s the way it’s going  
to stay.”

“But, Angel, “ she whined, “they don’t know what you just told me. I’m sure they’d agree with me if they knew.”

Angel was tired of this. He wished she’d just leave. It was almost impossible for him to believe that there had once been a time when Buffy’s mere presence made him happy. Those days were barely a memory now. He may have been given back his soul, but some things appeared to be gone forever; he ached with that knowledge.

A scream sounded from upstairs, stopping the argument from going any further. Both Angel and Buffy headed for the stairs and ran to the room where Willow had been napping. Angel reached it first and immediately sat beside her, taking the terrified, sobbing girl in his arms. She’d obviously had a nightmare; she was covered in sweat and her face was as pale as death. He held her close, ignoring Buffy’s glare as he soothed Willow.

“Hush, sweetling. I’m right here. It was just a dream. I’m here now. Nothing can hurt you.” He rocked gently back and forth as he cuddled her and continued to murmur to her in a low, soothing voice. “I’m here, sweetheart. No one will ever hurt you again. I promise.”

If looks could stake, the cold gleam in Buffy’s eyes would have dusted him on the spot, but Angel didn’t let go of Willow. He ignored the girl standing in the doorway as he continued to comfort his charge while she cried. Her nightmare must have been truly frightening to have left her in such a state.

The sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears. Just what he needed right now, another of Willow’s “friends” to deal with. That had better not be Xander.

It wasn’t.

“What’s going on?”

Jenny Calendar. Thank heavens. She was the most rational of the lot. If he had to deal with two of them right now, at least one was Jenny.

“Willow had a bad dream, that’s all.” Buffy rushed to answer, and Angel wanted to slap her for brushing Willow’s obvious pain aside in such a cavalier fashion.

Thankfully, Jenny seemed untouched by the girl’s callous attitude.

“Oh my God. Is she alright?” She looked at Angel as if asking for permission to join him in comforting Willow. His eyes didn’t give it and, to his utter amazement, she kept her distance, though she eyed him with suspicion as he continued to cradle Willow in his arms.

“Is there anything we can do, Angel?”

“Can you leave us alone for a minute? I’ll be down to talk with you. I just want to make sure Willow’s okay and then I’ll meet you in the living room.”

Jenny looked reluctant - Angel expected that - and for a moment, he wasn’t sure she’d comply with his request. But she did, taking Buffy by the arm and quickly dragging the protesting Slayer along with her. He knew there would be trouble waiting for him downstairs, but at least he’d have a few moments of peace in which to help Willow regain some sense of calm.

He hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head.

“I have to go and talk to Buffy and Miss Calendar.” He noted the worried look in her eyes and hastened to reassure her. “I’ll be back in just a little while. In the meantime, why don’t you read?” He reached over to the night table, picked up the volume of Jane Eyre that he had read to Willow from the previous night, and handed it to her. Then he kissed her cheek, rose, and left the room.

The conversation had already started by the time he got downstairs and it seemed to be quite heated. He stood just outside the room and listened for a moment, wanting to get the lay of the land before he subjected himself to another one of Buffy’s tirades.

“. . . feel that way, Buffy. And I’m not any happier about it than you are. I’d like nothing more than to take Willow away from here so she would never have to see Angel again. But in case you haven’t noticed, Willow seems to feel differently. None of us can even get near her. We don’t really have a choice. For right now, she has to stay with Angel.”

“But why can’t we just have Angel sedate her and then take her with us? I’m sure that once she’s out of here where all those . . . things happened to her, she’ll be better in no time.”

“Things.” That’s what Buffy thought had happened to Willow. Just some “things.” Did she think this was no worse for the girl than finding out that Xander was dating Cordelia? Just some teenage angst that ice cream and chocolate and a pedicure would fix? He looked at Buffy and tried with all his might to see the girl he had loved so much it had cost him his soul, but she wasn’t there. All he saw was a spoiled teenage brat who was jealous that her boyfriend was paying attention to another girl. It made him feel worse than ever. He’d lost his soul over a fantasy, but the consequences had been so terribly real.

“We’ve been over this before, Buffy,” Angel said as he entered the room. “Willow was absolutely dependent on Angelus when you gave me back my soul. That didn’t magically change just because I did. I thought we had already gone over this and that you understood.”

He wasn’t going to let Buffy take Willow away from him. Now, more than ever, he needed to be the one who made things right. To be the first one who saw the light return to Willow’s eyes. To be there when she became _Willow_ again. That was the only thing that could keep him from greeting the sunrise. Because it was the only thing that could heal the pain he felt for what the loss of his soul had cost the girl who’d been the first friend he’d had in longer than he could remember.

“But Angel, it wasn’t you. You never would have done that to Willow. Not with your soul. I know you feel guilty and that you want to be the one who makes things right. But you have to see that Willow belongs with her friends. With the people who love her and care about her. You barely even knew her before . . . all this happened. How can you possibly make her better?”

“We don’t have a choice right now, Buffy. Since Angelus broke her down and made her depend upon him totally, Willow will cling to anything that reminds her of him. That would be Angel. Since he claims to be willing to try to fix the damage he did, we have to take him at his word for the time being or we risk hurting Willow even more. But as soon as she doesn’t fear us anymore, you can rest assured that she’ll be coming home with me.”

Angel didn’t argue with Jenny. It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement - she seemed to have conveniently forgotten the excellent reasons he’d advanced that first night for why Willow should stay with him ‘til she was well enough to go home - and her words promised him a new battle in the near future, but for the time being they gave him the promise of Willow, here, with him, and safe.

“We need to go now, Buffy. You have to patrol and Angel has to go back upstairs and take care of Willow. Giles and I will come back here later tonight before we go home.” She looked at Angel when she said those words and Angel knew she would be back with the Watcher in tow and that he’d have to argue his case all over again. “You can see Willow tomorrow.”

Buffy obviously wanted to remain behind and talk to him alone once more, but Jenny took her arm and steered her out the door as Buffy made subdued sounds of protest, seemingly torn between wanting to argue and not wanting to exacerbate what he sensed was some tension between herself and her Watcher’s girlfriend.

He wondered about that as he listened to their footsteps fade and then the sound of a car pulling away. He knew Buffy wasn’t fond of sharing people, she’d always discouraged him from getting to know her friends, but there seemed to be more to the animosity she obviously felt towards Jenny. He’d sensed the same attitude from Xander and he wondered what had happened to make both teens dislike the woman so much. Still, no matter how curious he might be, it wasn’t Buffy’s feelings for Jenny that were the problem he was facing right now, it was her feelings for _him_.

The look he’d seen in Buffy’s eyes earlier told him that, while he’d seen his love for her vanish since he’d gotten back his soul, the same wasn’t true for her. Despite the fact that Angelus’ crimes, the curse, and what Willow was still going through should have killed Buffy’s romantic feelings for him, she still saw him as _hers_. Still saw them as Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending. Still saw a future for them. He wouldn’t be surprised if her fantasies included children playing in the front yard of a house with a white picket fence. Buffy had the uncanny ability to ignore reality when it suited her, and it suited her often. He wondered why he had seen none of this before.

Maybe he, too, had wanted to escape reality, had wanted to believe that a normal life was possible for him. Maybe he had just wanted not to be a demon so badly that it blinded him. Maybe he had wanted the absolution that the love of a Slayer offered so much that he was willing to do whatever it took in order to have it. Whatever his reasons were, they weren’t good enough. The loss of his soul and the first sight of Willow’s vacant eyes had told him that. Why couldn’t Buffy see as clearly?

Angel was tired now. Tired of worrying about Buffy, and the others, and about the battles that were sure to come later. Willow needed him, so he would go to her. He tried not to think about the small voice inside that whispered of what Willow could do to ease his tension, to make the cares of the day a distant memory. The voice that asked if he was so sure he wanted to fix the girl at all, if maybe there were other, darker reasons behind his zeal to keep Willow to himself. Angel knew it was just his demon taking out it’s anger at being caged again in the only way it could. Angel knew who he was and why he was doing what he was doing. And if on some level he realized that his self-righteous beliefs about the purity of his soul mirrored Buffy’s blind refusal to see the demon as part and parcel of who he was? That, too, was a voice he ignored as he mounted the stairs and made his way back to the bedroom.

  
Tbc...


	5. Chapter Four

Escape Me Never (Chapter Four)

  
It was morning again.

Angel kept human hours now. Normalizing Willow’s schedule may have been Jenny and Giles’ idea, but since it benefitted Angel, he was hardly one to complain. It gave him most of Willow’s waking hours all to himself, after all, and meant that she was often asleep by the time the two who’d styled themselves her surrogate parents came by for their nightly chance to invade his home and cast doubts on his care of her. He was glad she didn’t have to endure most of those visits. They always left her agitated, and Angel hated to see her so upset. It was bad enough she had to endure Xander coming by every weekday after school, though those visits had begun to drop off lately, and the whole group descending on her _en masse_ every weekend.

He was happy to see that at least Buffy seemed less inclined lately to inflict her company on the poor girl. Sure, Buffy’s waning interest in playing the supportive friend was more selfish than selfless, but at least it meant she left Willow alone. Didn’t it occur to the rest of them that it might be best for Willow if she had some space to recover before being smothered by their attention? No. Of course it didn’t. They just kept pressing, thinking that they could somehow force Willow to feel the same way about them as before.

A part of Angel that sounded disturbingly like his demon wondered if their hurry to get her back in their clutches was because they were getting sick of doing all the research that Willow had normally taken off their hands. He felt guilty for thinking such things, but it was getting harder and harder to remain convinced that they cared about her as much as he did, not when they seemed determined to take Willow away from him no matter what harm it might do to her, no matter how obvious it was that she didn’t even want to be in the same room with them.

He could feel the beginnings of wakefulness in Willow as she snuggled in close to him, the way she did every morning. She was adorable, like a little girl trying to hold on to a happy dream. Perhaps she was. She never had nightmares when Angel slept next to her, and it made him happy to think that he could give her peace just by being near her. So different than the way things had been without his soul.

 _Angelus had enjoyed tonight’s dinner. A petite blonde who’d looked rather like Buffy, right down to the sluttish apparel. Of course, she lacked the fight or the flavour of the real thing, but then, not every meal could be *haute cuisine*. And at least dessert was four stars._

Willow was riding him, tiny lines around her eyes and a nearly imperceptible tic in her jaw the only clues that she hated what she was doing, hated pleasing him, hated that it always pleased *her*. It was a bit annoying that she wasn’t fully broken yet, but on the other hand, no hunter mounted the head of a rabbit on his wall. One only boasted of the most hard-won prizes.

She moved up and down on his cock, his hands on her hips as he met each thrust, urging her to pick up the pace. Soon their bodies were slamming together, and she was unable to hold back the cries of pain and pleasure as he took control, moving her as if she were a rag doll astride him. He felt her muscles clenching around his cock as she came, his own orgasm following within a few seconds as he pulled her down to him and bit into the soft, white flesh of her neck.

Now that had been fun, he thought as he moved Willow onto her knees and positioned himself behind her, but he was far from ready to call it a night. After all, even if dinner had been fast food, dessert was meant to be savoured.

Angel moaned softly; his eyes were still closed in reverie as he felt himself being stroked through the silk of his pajama bottoms. It was Willow, he suddenly realized. She was awake now and had obviously noticed his arousal. His eyes shot open. She’d responded the way she was trained to respond to his desire and Angel felt sick.

He sat up quickly and pushed her hand away from his erection, his heart sinking as he saw the look of hurt and confusion on her face. He cupped her face in his hand and caressed her cheek.

“It’s alright, sweetheart. You don’t have to do that anymore. Those things he made you do for him? You don’t have to do them for me. That’s not why you’re here. That’s not why I’m taking care of you.”

She seemed to understand. At least she looked less crestfallen than she had a moment ago. So Angel kissed the top of her head, just as he did every morning, and rose to go make breakfast.

“What would you like this morning, Willow?” Angel asked, as he always did.

As usual, Willow said nothing. She’d started responding occasionally to yes or no questions, but she never volunteered a word and she never said anything that might be construed as a request or a preference of any kind. Still, Angel always asked. Someday she would answer. That would be a wonderful day.

He went down to the kitchen and opened the freezer. Being grateful to Xander Harris was galling, but he had to admit that the boy’s knowledge of modern convenience foods had been a boon. It was pleasant to be able to have a hot meal for Willow ready in less time than it took to choose which one to prepare. He figured they had to taste pretty good, or people wouldn’t eat them, and it was wonderful not to have to leave Willow’s side for very long in order to fix her something to eat.

This morning, however, being quick about things wasn’t as appealing as usual. He needed some time to get his libido under control before heading back upstairs, so he put the frozen pancakes back on the shelf, closed the freezer, and opened the refrigerator instead. Eggs and cheese and butter. Good. He could make an omelet for her.

  
As he found a pan and turned on the stove burner, he kept his thoughts off of Angelus and his relationship with Willow. But that didn’t mean he could stop thinking about the girl who was waiting for her breakfast upstairs.

It was getting more and more difficult to sleep beside her. Sure, thanks to their keeping this human schedule, he was no longer worried that one of the others would catch him in bed next to her. But that was part of the problem. Without any fear of discovery, he was enjoying the intimacy of their situation too much. Luxuriating in the nearness of the soft, warm body in his bed, he often felt like they were the only two people in the world. Some mornings, waking up with his arms around Willow, he could have sworn he felt every bit as happy as he had after making love to Buffy. It terrified him. And for more reasons than one.

He had strong feelings for Willow, there wasn’t any argument he could think of to convince himself otherwise, and it was all wrong. He had no right to romantic intentions towards the girl he’d pledged to care for after nearly destroying her. He, or at least his demon, had raped and broken her. What right could he possibly have to love her and expect her to love him back?

Then there was the matter of his soul. There was still that horrible “happiness clause” to consider. Jenny had informed him that she and the others had performed the original curse in order to restore his soul, so that barrier to real bliss was still very much in effect. He should have expected that. No mercy to be had from the daughter of the people who had cursed him in the first place. But like it or not, the clause was there, and he would not, _could_ not, allow the curse to be broken again. He couldn’t bear the thought of Angelus getting his hands on Willow once more, and he prayed to a God he hoped would at least hear his pleas on behalf of another that he would protect her, make sure that she hadn’t been rescued from that monster in vain.

He brought his attention back to his task and realized the omelet was done. Thank heavens he’d remembered enough about how to cook that he’d been able to prepare breakfast and brood at the same time. He got a plate down from the cupboard and put the omelet on it, hoping it looked appetizing, and then put it on the tray he would carry to Willow. Then he poured a glass of milk for her and, adding it to the tray, he made his way back upstairs.

Willow looked relieved when he entered the room with her breakfast and Angel chided himself. He should have known it would worry her that he was gone longer than normal. But his self-flagellation soon gave way to delight when he saw the expression on Willow’s face. She looked positively joyful and she was obviously taking in the sight of her breakfast with a great deal of happy anticipation.

“You made me an omelet,” she said softly, but with a kind of childlike awe. “Thank you.”

Angel’s heart soared and he sat next to her, pulling her into a hug and kissing the top of her head reverently.

“I hope you enjoy it, sweetheart. I haven’t made one in a very long time.”

As soon as he let her go, she began to eat, almost wolfing down the food and smiling the whole time. Irrationally, Angel was filled with a hatred for Xander. This moment could have been his ages ago if that idiotic boy hadn’t convinced him that those frozen meals were just as good as homemade. He should have known better. Well from now on, he would cook for Willow. He made a mental note to have some recipe books delivered along with a new grocery order as soon as possible.

Willow had finished her breakfast in a trice and was positively beaming at him. Angel’s heart swelled and broke all at once. He was glad he had made her so happy. At the same time, he felt terrible that her life had come to a point where she was so heartrendingly grateful for a small thing like an omelet. Still, her smile was a beautiful thing, like what he imagined sunshine to be, and he couldn’t help but bask in its radiance.

He put the tray down on the floor and lay back on the bed next to Willow. He would take the dishes down later. For now, he wanted to stay here with the woman he had only just admitted to himself that he loved, enjoying the best moments she’d undoubtedly had since he’d lost his soul. And it wasn’t surprising, considering his natural inclination to rest at this time of day, that he soon fell sound asleep with Willow’s head pillowed against his chest.

  
 _Angelus snarled as he stormed up the stairs to his room. Tonight had not gone well. Just when he’d decided to step things up against The Slayer, the bitch had to go and find a spell to revoke his invitation to her home. Damn her. Her mother’s blood would have been delicious, he was sure, and draining the clueless woman would have been the perfect way to let Buffy know that Sunnydale was *his*. Wouldn’t you know someone had monkey-wrenched things for him, just as he was about to step up the game and make it interesting at last? It was probably Giles’ handiwork. The stuffy old codger couldn’t let *anyone* have any fun._

He was in a lousy mood when he entered his bedroom, but at least the cure for what ailed him lay sleeping on the bed just a few scant feet away. Those experts who said that having a pet was a great way to relieve stress knew what they were talking about, that was for sure. Because playing with *his* pet always seemed to make him feel calmer and less irritable. Well, he needed some of that stress relief right now.

“Willow,” he singsonged. “Wakey-wakey. Daddy’s home.”

She stirred and sat up, the sheet that covered her falling to her waist, exposing her breasts to his hungry gaze.

“Did you miss me?”

She didn’t answer. Not that he expected her to - after all, she wasn’t completely broken in yet - but her eyes and demeanor proffered no contradiction. The girl had learned that much, at least, and learned it well. Good girl.

“Undress me.”

He didn’t have to ask twice. She got up from the bed quickly and came to him, her nudity still an intoxicating sight despite his familiarity with it. He felt himself harden; obedience was such a turn-on. The way her fingers worked the buttons of his shirt, the feel of her soft hands on his chest. He groaned as her hands moved to unfasten his trousers, watched her sink slowly to her knees as she pushed his pants down . . . Yes, indeed, he thought, as Willow’s mouth engulfed his cock, there was nothing like a well-trained pet to take the edge off a bad night.

  
He awoke, or he thought he did, but he was still dreaming. He had to be, for he could still feel Willow’s mouth on his cock, could feel the brush of her hair against his thighs, could feel the softness of her hand as she caressed his sac. But it felt different somehow, less like a memory of her time with Angelus and more like it was happening to _him_.

It only took him a moment longer to realize that it felt different because he wasn’t dreaming. Dear God. Willow’s mouth really _was_ on his cock, and it was so much more glorious than any dream. His memories couldn’t hold a candle to her actual skills, her perfection, the ecstasy she could give. For a moment, his brain shouted at him to stop this, screamed that his soul was in grave peril, but then he was lost. Lost in that warm, wet mouth. Lost in the incredible, wonderful, damning sensations she created. And he gave himself over to her. His hands tangled in her hair, urging her on, his hips bucking up to meet each downward stroke of her mouth. He had never known this much pure sexual bliss.

He wanted it to last forever, but the pleasure was far too great for him to hold back his release for very long. Willow swallowed greedily, milking him of every drop he could possibly give. She looked at him with the most innocent expression as he collapsed, gloriously sated, and closed his eyes. This was the most content and happy he had ever felt and he reveled in the sensations still thrumming through his body.

And then it hit him. Perfect happiness. His soul. He was about to lose his soul.

He pulled Willow up and looked at her, his eyes wild with fear.

“What did you do?” he cried, shaking her.

He hated himself the moment the words left his mouth. How could he blame her? She was only doing what his demon had forced her to learn to do, what had been drilled into her with ruthless efficiency. She had “thanked” him in the way she had been taught. And he had let her. He should have known this would happen after what had gone on earlier, but he’d taken it for granted that she’d believed him when he’d told her that he didn’t expect, didn’t _want_ her to serve him that way. Obviously she hadn’t. Because she had sensed the truth, that deep down, he _had_ wanted this, and she had acted accordingly.

He’d as good as raped her, he realized that now. This hadn’t been an act of mutual pleasure between two consenting partners. This had been him taking gratification from a girl who’d been damaged and broken and trained to perform. There was no excuse for what he had done. He could have, _should_ have stopped her. But he hadn’t. He had used her the same way Angelus had, and now his selfishness had condemned Willow to a life as Angelus’ pet for as long as that demon desired, and condemned the others to a certain and gruesome death.

Angel held Willow close. She was crying, thinking he was angry with her.

“Shhh, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.” He whispered the words over and over as his own tears fell. Soon, his soul would be gone forever. All he could do was wait for the pain to come. The pain that was Willow’s certain doom.

He waited.

And he waited.

The pain never came.

And his soul never left him.

Jenny Calendar had lied to him. The curse she had performed had no clause. Angel need never fear happiness again. The problem was, he didn’t deserve it. Not now.

How ironic was it that he had lost his soul during an act of mutual affection and love and kept it while using the girl his demon had nearly destroyed?

He wondered what should he do about Willow now. Should he send her away? Give her over to Jenny Calendar? Even though she had lied to him, and despite his own misgivings about the way she and the others behaved towards his charge, he knew that she cared about Willow. Would Willow be safer with Jenny?

Angel stayed lost in thought for several minutes and, as he calmed down after the tumult of the last few minutes, he began to consider things more dispassionately. He concluded that, in spite of recent events, keeping Willow with him was really the best course of action. What happened had been wrong, certainly. But in his own defense, he _had_ been asleep and could hardly be expected to be rational, waking up to what Willow was doing to him. He would just explain things more clearly, be more firm and emphatic when reiterating that she was not his sexual plaything any longer. That would solve the problem of a repeat performance, he was certain.

After all, Willow had made stunning progress today. Speaking up and expressing a preference for something for the first time, he knew, since before his soul had been restored. All that could be undone if he sent her to live with Jenny, who she didn’t trust the way she trusted him. No, there was much more to be lost than gained by changing Willow’s circumstances right now. All he needed to do was set the ground rules with more authority, make sure he wasn’t sending out mixed signals, and above all, exercise restraint and self-control. Then all would be well. Surely, once he’d helped her recover completely, she would forgive him for today. _And maybe_ , that dark voice inside him whispered, _she would do it again._

  
Tbc...


	6. Chapter Five

Escape Me Never (Chapter Five)

“Buffy, there _is_ no us. Not anymore.”

He should never have told Giles and Jenny about yesterday’s breakthrough. But another round of disapproval and suspicion from the pair had induced Angel to tell them about Willow’s reaction to his omelet. Anything to forestall their endless questions, their undisguised distrust of his ability to help Willow heal. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

But he should have known better. Should have known that they would share the news with the others. Should have known that Buffy would see it as a sign that Willow would be out of his life soon.

“Why not, Angel?” Buffy pleaded with him, her eyes wide, looking at him in a way that once would have melted his heart. Now it left him with nothing more than a desire to be far away from her.

He knew that mentioning everything that Angelus had done, everything that had happened to Willow, would be useless. Since those things hadn’t deterred her already, bringing them up would only start her off on yet another rant about how he shouldn’t have to pay for Angelus’ crimes; it was obvious Buffy still thought he was in love with her and wanted her back, that he was only staying away from her out of guilt. But there _was_ one other card. One that he was reasonably certain Jenny hadn’t taken out of his hand.

“What about the curse, Buffy? Have you forgotten? The happiness clause?”

She looked confused for a moment, and Angel almost snorted in disbelief. Possibly she _had_ forgotten. Typical Buffy.

But she regrouped quickly and said, “Of course I haven’t forgotten. And I know that means we can’t make love. But that doesn’t mean we can’t see each other, can’t be together. Please, Angel. We love each other. Don’t do this to us.”

There were tears shining in her eyes. Angel’s heart sank. It was obvious that all she saw when she looked at him was a reflection of herself, of her own needs and desires. She didn’t have a clue how he really felt and it wouldn’t do him any good to try and make her see. A spurned Slayer was an enemy he didn’t need. Not now.

 _The Judge, the indestructible annihilator of humanity. Now appearing at a shopping mall near you._

This occasion marked Angelus’ big debut on the Sunnydale scene after *decades* of being trapped by that damn Gypsy curse. It should have been a triumph. Instead, it was a rout.

He should have known that any plan concocted by that demented childe of his was bound to be a disaster. And it sure had been. Blue Boy was in a thousand pieces and *he* was running like a wet rat through the sprinkler-soaked corridors of the local mall. Could things be any worse right now? Oh yeah, they could. He had a new toy at home, and, instead of being where he should, playing with her, he was dashing through this throng of annoying humans wearing soggy leather pants.

Wait. His ex-girlfriend was coming down the hall right now. Maybe he should give her a kiss, show her there were no hard feelings.

Or not.

As Buffy came around the corner, he was ready. She never saw it coming as he punched, knocking her to the ground with one solid shot to the face. Too bad about Slayer healing, that would have left a nice shiner on a regular mortal. Well, never mind, there was always a way to leave scars. Even on a Slayer.

He looked down at Buffy, sprawled on the wet floor, and smirked. “You know what the worst part was, huh? Pretending that I loved you.”

She looked wounded. Time to thrust the knife in a little deeper.

“If I’d known how easily you’d give it up, I wouldn’t have even bothered.”

Darn, she didn’t seem to be as hurt as he’d hoped.

“It doesn’t work anymore. You’re not Angel.”

Who would have thought the airheaded bitch could be so quick on the uptake? Damn, he’d been hoping for her usual clueless stupidity to leave him with a nice way to cause her pain.

“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? Doesn’t matter. The important thing is you made me the man I am today.”

Ooh. Now that was a hit. And right back at him. Ouch. She always *had* been more of a fighter than a lover. Angel had sure found that out, and unfortunately, thanks to this body being his as well, so had *he*. He shook off the memories of that regrettable roll in the hay and got back to the business of fighting his mortal enemy. Let’s see if he could put the kibosh on this, drain the bitch, and get back to the little woman.

“You’re not quittin’ on me already, are ya? Come on, Buffy. Let’s finish this so I can go home. After all, Willow’s waiting up for me.”

That did it. Buffy was all fired up now, her anger making her reckless as she fought him. Unfortunately, the ground was slippery and the soul’s “one true love” was getting the upper hand. Dammit, how the hell did she manage to conceal a stake in that skimpy outfit?

“What do you think will happen if you kill me, Buffy? You know, I like to play with my food. Willow could have weeks, even months to live if I’m around. But Dru? She’s never been good at keeping her prey alive for long, and besides, she’ll be angry if you take her Daddy away and she’ll definitely want some payback. Willow will be dead before my ashes hit the ground.”

It worked. Buffy was distracted just long enough for him to knock the stake from her hand.

“You see? You can’t kill me.”

He felt cocky as hell right now. No matter how good a fighter she was, Buffy’s emotions always got in her way. He preened in triumph.

Pride goeth before a kick to the groin.

In a flash, Buffy’s foot connected with his crotch, pain shooting through his entire body. Bitch. This almost felt worse than fucking her.

“That’s for Willow. I wouldn’t hurt her if I were you. You’ll pay for every moment of pain that she suffers. If you think this was bad, you don’t even know what bad is. Let her go, Angel. I mean it. Or you’ll be sorry.”

And with that, she turned and walked away, leaving him moaning and clutching his sore dick. If she thought she was going to defeat his plans for her cute little friend this easily, though, she was in for a rude awakening. Time to go home and get to work on breaking in his new pet. He wasn’t going to let a little thing like this ruin his night.

“Buffy,” Angel tried to make his voice consoling, to sound as if it was as hard for him to let go of her as it obviously was for her to let go of him. “How well do you really think that would work? Don’t you think it would be unfair? To both of us, but especially to you.”

She didn’t understand and Angel fought the urge to sigh in annoyance.

“How long do you think it would be before you would feel cheated? Before you’d want a man who could give you what I can’t. Who could give you a complete relationship.”

“As long as we’re together, Angel, I don’t care about the rest. I love you. Anything we can have is enough for me.”

“What about me, then? How easy do you think it would be for me? Being around you. Knowing what we can never share again.”

Those words were a mistake. He found that out immediately.

“Is that what this is about? Is that what this was all along? You just wanted to get me into bed? Angelus was telling the truth then, wasn’t he. All I ever meant to you was some notch on your belt. Something to brag about in the vampires’ locker room. ‘Guess what, guys? I screwed the Slayer.’ I was just some way to one up all the other demons, to prove you were still a real vampire, even with a soul.”

Angel reached out to her, but she jerked away from his touch, her face red with rage and humiliation.

“Buffy, you know that isn’t true. You know what you meant to me, how I felt, how much I loved you.”

He’d put his foot in it again. She caught his use of the past tense right away and seized on it.

“What I _meant_ to you? What are you saying, Angel? Are you saying that you don’t love me anymore?”

There was nothing he could say. Nothing that would fix this. Because he wasn’t going to lie. So he decided to try and at least be honest in the gentlest possible way.

“No, Buffy, I don’t. Not the way I did. Everything that happened when I lost my soul has made me realize that we just don’t belong together. We’re no good for each other. What happened between us, losing my soul, the clause in my curse, that all just confirms it. We aren’t meant to be. Someday, you’ll realize that I’m right. You’ll find someone else and...”

“It’s this thing with Willow, isn’t it?”

For a moment, Angel panicked. Had Buffy sensed his feelings? Was she not as self-absorbed as he’d thought? Her next words, however, dispelled that notion and were almost a relief.

“You feel guilty because of what Angelus did. But it wasn’t _you_ , Angel. I know you. You would never have done those things to Willow. Why can’t you see that?”

He’d known she’d see things this way. That she would never be able to accept that he didn’t love her anymore. That she’d have to find some excuse for why he was saying goodbye to what they had shared.

“Buffy, this isn’t about Willow. This is about you and me. A Slayer and a vampire. Two people who should never have fallen in love. Two people who are all wrong for each other. Who can never be anything _but_ wrong for each other.”

He reached out to wipe a tear from Buffy’s cheek, hoping the tender gesture would soften his words, make them easier for her to accept. He had loved her once, and a part of him hated that she was hurting.

She flinched and glared at him. She was obviously not going to be mollified.

“Buffy, think about what I’ve said. I know it hurts right now, but. . .”

“But what, Angel? But what? Are you going to tell me you’re doing this for my own good? That someday I’ll thank you? Because I won’t. I love you. And I don’t believe you mean any of this. I know that you still love me. The kind of love we have doesn’t just go away.”

Angel ran his hand through his hair in frustration. For the first time, he realized just how much teenage girl was a part of the Slayer he had loved. She wasn’t going to make this easy, and right now he couldn’t deal with her any longer.

“Buffy, I think you should go. You’re in no condition to see Willow right now, and you and I have nothing more to say to each other.”

“Angel. . .”

“Buffy, just go. Please.”

“Angel, if I leave now, you’ll never see me again. I mean it.”

He stayed silent, knowing she _didn’t_ mean it. Knowing that, even if she left right now, she’d be back and this whole mess would start up all over again.

“Alright, Angel. If you’re willing to throw away what we have, I’m going.”

With that, she flounced out the front door, slamming it behind her. Angel knew where she was going. Straight to Giles and Jenny. He dreaded what he was going to endure later when the two of them paid him a visit.

For now, though, he needed to go upstairs and check on Willow. He hoped she hadn’t heard any of the argument. Buffy upset her under the best of circumstances, but Buffy in a temper would likely terrify her. Besides, he needed to think, to plan his defense for when Giles and Jenny showed up, ready to take Willow away from him, and he could do that better if he was with the girl he loved. Being with her made everything make sense, made him feel less torn apart, less conflicted. Even before he had found out his soul was no longer in jeopardy.

When he got to the door, the pounding of Willow’s heart and the scent of her tears told him that she’d obviously heard something and his demon roared within him. Damn Buffy for a selfish bitch. Did she ever think of anyone but herself? Did she care _nothing_ for the damaged girl she called her best friend?

He walked in and saw Willow curled up on the bed, crying. She sprang to her feet and ran to him, wrapping her arms around him and holding on for dear life.

“Shh, sweetling,” he consoled her. “No need for you to cry. She’s gone. It’s just us now.”

Willow looked into his face, but he wasn’t quite able to read her expression. That is, until she began to sink to her knees. He pulled her up quickly and looked into her eyes.

“No. Willow, you don’t have to do that for me. I’m not going to send you away. Please listen to me, sweetheart. You don’t have to do _anything_ for me.”

 _Willow looked so beautiful on her knees, his cock sliding in and out of her mouth. Angelus was going to have to immortalize this in charcoal. Hell, he might have to break out the oil paints and canvas to do her justice. No one gave head like his pet._

She’d had some stage fright the first time he demanded she perform in front of his childer, but a little discipline had cured her of that, and tonight she had knelt before him without a hint of reluctance. Her training was coming along nicely.

He groaned as she began to work him in earnest. She hesitated slightly as she heard him ask one of the minions to bring him something to drink and he growled low in his throat. Even the slightest trace of disobedience was not to be tolerated. He’d ordered her to suck him off, not worry about who was watching.

Ah, that’s the ticket. Back at her task, like a good little whore. He threaded his hands tightly in her hair, tugging it painfully as he guided her in the hard and fast rhythm he needed to finish. He came quickly, flooding her mouth with his release, and he watched approvingly as she swallowed every drop and licked the last traces from his cock. He patted her head as if she were a faithful hound.

Spike cheered and applauded raucously and Angelus felt Willow stiffen. He glared at her. She should be pleased by Spike’s reaction. It meant she had performed well enough to excite admiration and envy in her audience. He thought he’d cured her of that ridiculous shyness and self-consciousness. After all, everything she was belonged to *him* now. She *had* no self. Obviously, she hadn’t learned that lesson yet. Despite the promising start to the evening's entertainment, she’d defied him twice tonight. That sort of behaviour could not go unpunished.

“Go upstairs and wait for me, Willow.”

His tone was gruff and curt and Willow obeyed immediately. She should have been this compliant before, then she would have no reason to be giving off the waves of fear he could still scent even as she left the room. He got up and followed her, the sound of a chuckle from Spike accompanying his departure. His pet needed some remedial discipline.

She looked wounded and confused, her eyes brimming with tears, and Angel felt his heart ache. But then her hand was on his cock, stroking him through his trousers, and he had to do something to stop her. He pulled her hand away, grabbed both her wrists, and held them tight, keeping her hands away from his body. He didn’t know how much more he could take.

“Willow. Listen to me.” He tried to be firm. “This is not what we are. I’m not him. You don’t have to do these things for me. I don’t _want_ you to do these things for me.”

He hoped he was convincing. His whole body ached with the effort of denying her. But this wasn’t what she wanted; he knew that. It was what his demonic counterpart had _trained_ her to do.

She looked abandoned and sad as he let go of her wrists and watched her sit down on the edge of the bed. She seemed lost, as if she didn’t know where she was. . .or _who_ she was. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but it seemed that was exactly what he had done. God help him if he’d undone all the progress she’d made yesterday. She didn’t understand that he had rejected her advances because he loved her. That he was doing this for her own good. Angel’s gut twisted as he sat next to her and put his hand over hers.

“Willow, sweetheart, look at me.”

She stared at the ground, unwilling to look into his eyes. He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze.

“Please don’t be sad. I’m not trying to hurt you. But it wouldn’t be right for me to be with you. Not like this. Not while you’re still so fragile. This isn’t what you want, not really. I know you don’t understand right now, but someday you will and you’ll be glad that we didn’t do this. What happened last night can’t happen again. I should have made you stop. But I didn’t and I took advantage of you. You don’t realize that now, but when you do, I just hope you can forgive me.”

Willow still looked confused and unhappy, but not as lost, and Angel considered that a small victory. He kissed the top of her head and stood up.

“It’s dinnertime. Would you like to come downstairs and help me cook? I’d love your company.”

She looked at him blankly but nodded her head. He took her hand as she rose from the bed and together they headed towards the kitchen. He would be cooking a real dinner for her for the first time; he only hoped that she didn’t try to “thank” him for it.

The groceries he ordered had been delivered and Angel rattled off a list of possibilities to Willow, his heart sinking when she didn’t respond. Well, he supposed it was too much to hope for. After all, it was only yesterday that she had even expressed approval of the omelet. He could hardly expect her to make a choice so soon, especially after what had just happened upstairs. Still, it pained him to see her sitting on a stool, staring at the ground. There was no expression on her face and her blankness nearly brought him to tears. Maybe her meal would make her smile.

He decided to make her a cheeseburger. It was a simple thing and one that he knew most teenagers liked. He only hoped Willow was one of them. He ruffled her hair, then he set about his task. Dinner, he realized sadly, would not be the joyous occasion that yesterday’s breakfast had been. Nevertheless, he hoped that cooking for her again would show her that his rejection of her sexual favours a few minutes ago was not a rejection of _her_.

She sat quietly as he prepared her meal and the smile Angel hoped for wasn’t there when he put her burger on a plate and handed it to her with a flourish and an exaggerated “Bon appetit.” She ate quickly, and without a hint of enjoyment, her chewing and swallowing rhythmic and mechanical. He sighed, and she looked at him with a curious and slightly fearful expression, worried that she had displeased him somehow. He couldn’t stand to see her like this. Not after seeing her so much happier yesterday. It was more than his heart could bear. He took her by the hand and pulled her up to stand in front of him.

“Willow, please don’t shut yourself off from me again. I care about you so much, sweetheart. Don’t you know that?”

He gathered her into his embrace, almost crowing when he felt her relax against him. She looked up into his face and he found himself getting lost in her eyes. She was his. She belonged to him in a way that no one ever had before and something in him needed desperately for her to know that. This time, there was no resistance left in him. So he kissed her.

She responded with an ardor that left him stunned, seeming hungry for his affection and his touch. For the first time, he truly felt that they were sharing something. He knew that she had never had this kind of intimacy with Angelus, this kind of caring and giving, and he longed to show her everything she hadn’t known before. But there wasn’t time. Jenny and Giles would be here soon and, if his luck was _really_ bad, Buffy and Xander would be accompanying them. So, with a heavy heart and a frustrated body, he broke off the kiss and gently pushed Willow away.

“Sweetheart.” He spoke kindly, hoping to forestall the pain and rejection he knew she would feel. “I want you. Believe me. I want you so much.”

That was an understatement, and he hoped she realized how much effort it took for him not to just carry her upstairs and make love to her for the rest of the night. It was only the knowledge of just what would happen if they were caught that kept his resolve as firm as a certain part of his body.

“But your friends will be here soon and I have to talk to them.”

She nodded. Good.

“Let’s just go upstairs and get you dressed. I think it would be a good idea for you to see them tonight, if you feel up to it.”

He hoped she was agreeable to his suggestion. Her presence would certainly help keep him from being rounded on too severely, something he was _not_ anxious to endure after having already dealt with Buffy today. Fortunately, the fates were smiling on him and Willow nodded her assent.

“After they go home, we’ll talk some more, okay?”

She smiled. It was the dazzling smile he loved so much and his heart almost burst. God help Giles and Jenny if they tried to take her away from him now. Willow was his, and he was ready to drain anyone who got between them.

He wondered briefly why that last thought didn’t make him feel nearly as guilty as it should, but he shook it off as he walked upstairs holding Willow’s hand. There would be time for brooding later. For now, they would just prepare for this evening’s visitors.

  
Tbc...


	7. Chapter Six

Escape Me Never (Chapter Six)

The nightly visitors would be there soon and they were both ready. Angel wore a black silk shirt and black trousers, casual, but elegant, and Willow was wearing one of the many ensembles he’d purchased for her, attire that suited her quiet beauty without doing violence to the shy girl she still was despite her ordeal at the hands of Angelus.

As much as Angel had to acknowledge the crass appeal of Buffy’s skimpy outfits, the short skirts and skin-tight tops, he would never want Willow to dress that way. His mind flashed back to Halloween and he nearly growled. Trust Buffy to think it was a good idea to deck Willow out in the same vulgar style _she_ always sported. It had been almost an abomination. No, Willow wasn’t Buffy. She didn’t need to display all her wares at the front of the market stall in order to be alluring.

Take now, for instance. There she stood, calf-length, moss green plaid skirt skimming her hips, showing just enough well-turned ankle and gently rounded calf to make a man’s mouth go dry wondering what further delights lay yet undiscovered; cream silk blouse giving just a hint of the soft curves it concealed; grey cashmere cardigan clinging to lovely, slender arms, and it was all Angel could do to keep from undressing her piece by piece, a groan nearly escaping his lips as he imagined unveiling her nubile form and taking her to his bed. Maybe it had taken losing his soul and regaining it yet again to bring his aesthetic in line with his age, but now that it had finally happened, Angel could hardly believe he’d ever preferred the cheap and obvious to Willow’s more discriminating appeal.

The sound of the doorbell broke through his dangerous reverie and he took Willow’s arm to escort her downstairs. The doorbell was a good sign. Giles and Jenny always used it when they arrived alone; when accompanied by Buffy and Xander, they all just barged right in. Tonight, fortune must be favoring him with at least the ghost of a smile.

As they reached the door, Angel could only hear the sound of one heartbeat besides Willow’s and he was a bit puzzled. They had never had only one visitor of a night. His nose told him the identity of this evening’s lone caller before he opened the door. Jenny Calendar was here, and without her tweed-clad Romeo. This _was_ a bit of a surprise. Angel had a feeling his earlier relief might well have been misplaced as he opened the door to admit her.

“Good evening, Angel.”

Her tone was stiff and formal, as always, her hatred for him seething just below the surface. She was startled, but also looked relieved to see Willow standing beside him and he realized that she must have been dreading coming here by herself, remembering a time not so long ago when the two of them, or at least she and his demon, had been alone in a room together.

  
 _Drusilla had been acting like a spoiled brat lately, but at least she still knew which side her bread was blooded on. And today she had told him the most curious story. About a teacher. And her family. And a curse._

Sunnydale High was such a fascinating place. He hadn’t been much for book learning as a lad - that was dear William’s provenance, not his - but maybe he’d been missing something. Of course, the teachers hadn’t been nearly as fetching in his day as the one engrossed in working on her computer right now, unaware of his presence.

“Come on, come on. That’s it. That’ll work.”

She was downright chipper, the pretty gypsy was. She’d obviously figured something out. Something important, if the gleeful expression on her face as she read over the paper being spewed out by the printer was any indication. Well, good news was always better shared. Let’s see if he could get her to open up.

She gasped. “Angel.”

Ah, so she finally realized she wasn’t alone. Good. His feelings had been hurt by her earlier obliviousness. He wasn’t used to being ignored by beautiful women. Still, it did sting a bit that she hadn’t gotten his name right. Oh well, he supposed he could forgive her mistake just this once.

“How’d you get in here?”

“I was invited.”

She looked confused. Maybe he hadn’t missed out on much after all. For a teacher, she sure didn’t seem too sharp.

“The sign in front of the school: Formatia trans sicere educatorum.”

“Enter all ye who seek knowledge.”

Oh good. Angelus had begun to despair of modern education. At least she knew her Latin.

“What can I say? I’m a knowledge seeker.”

“Angel, I’ve got good news.”

There she was with that name again. How many people did a vamp have to drain to get some respect? Wasn’t taking ownership of Willow a good enough indication that he was no longer a housepet? Seems that Willow wasn’t the only one who still required some instruction. Because this teacher certainly seemed in need of a good lesson.

“I heard. You went shopping at the local boogedy-boogedy store.”

At least she was looking properly terrified now, backing away as he approached the desk. It wasn’t quite the shrieking and pleading he deserved, but it would do for the moment.

“The Orb of Thesulah. If memory serves, this is supposed to summon a person’s soul from the ether. Store it until it can be transferred.”

The Orb glowed as it lay nestled in the palm of his hand. The nerve of the gypsy bitch, trying to neuter him again. She’d pay for this.

“You know what I hate most about these things?”

The Orb shattered into a cloud of glass and dust as he threw it full force against the wall. The teacher finally screamed. Not for the last time tonight, he’d make sure of that.

“They’re so damn fragile. Must be that shoddy, Gypsy craftsmanship, huh?”

Aw. Guess that racial slur offended her. Her terror won out over her umbrage, however, and she was backing away again. Good. He hated not getting his point across.

The sweet scent of her fear was giving him all sorts of delicious ideas. She might just be the perfect object lesson for his lovely, but stubborn, little Willow. Watching her favorite teacher die a painful, lingering death might help his pet to learn her place once and for all. But first things first, time to get rid of every trace of that hideous curse once and for all.

He stood over the computer. It seemed so innocuous, just plastic and glass. Yet within it...

“I never cease to be amazed at how much the world has changed in just two and a half centuries. It’s a miracle to me. You put the secrets to restoring my soul in here.”

With a crash and a shower of sparks, the computer now lay broken beyond repair on the floor at his feet. All knowledge really *was* ephemeral.

“It comes out here.”

He yanked the printout from the machine and smirked. It felt good to have power over the very thing that had caged him so degradingly for so long.

“The Ritual of Restoration. Wow. This... This brings back memories.”

He began to tear it up, gazing into the flames building inside the ruins of the computer.

“Wait, that’s your...”

“My cure?”

How could anyone so stupid have ever become a teacher? As if he would give up all of this- the power, the bloodshed, the joys of pet ownership- in order to go back to being a fluffy, defanged, pathetic shadow of a vampire.

“No thanks. Been there, done that... Deja vu just isn’t what it used to be.”

He dropped the scraps of torn paper one by one into the fire.

“Boy, isn’t this my lucky day. The computer... and the pages. Looks like I get to kill two birds with one stone.”

She was edging towards the door. Goody. It was always more fun when they tried to make a run for it. Of course, she’d be even more frightened if she knew what his plans were. Stupid bitch probably thought she’d just be a drain and drop.

He let his true face emerge as he looked up from the fire that was consuming the curse.

“The teacher... makes... three.”

And she’s off! First a clumsy stumble right into his arms. No fun at all. So he let her go, watching as she dashed out the door and nearly fell on her face while she was at it. Damn her, she was making this almost too easy.

“Jenny!”

Oh hell! Everyone’s favorite buzzkill was here. Dammit, shouldn’t stuffy old librarians be in bed at this hour?

“Rupert!” He heard her call out. “It’s Angel, he’s here.”

She was out of breath and he watched from a distance as she fell into the Watcher’s arms.

“The curse... the Orb.” She looked so crestfallen, even from this distance. Angelus wished he could stay and gloat, but he had a girl at home who needed tending to and it wouldn’t do to keep her waiting.

It was a pity, though, that he wouldn’t be bringing a guest with him. Sure, he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do, but he hated to give up on the idea of finally making Willow the perfect pet... tonight. Still, Jenny Calendar wasn’t the only fish in the sea, might not even be the *best* fish now that he thought about it. There might be others much better suited to the task of helping Willow achieve her full potential. Hmm... wonder what Cordelia Chase was up to this evening...

  
“Jenny.” Angel’s voice broke the uncomfortable silence as she stood in the foyer, her hand almost twitching with what he could tell was a desire to reach back for the doorknob.

“Rupert couldn’t make it this evening.”

“Or Xander either, I suppose.”

Angel couldn’t resist getting a dig in while Jenny was backed into a corner, both literally and figuratively, feeling rather disturbingly like his counterpart as he enjoyed watching her jaw clench with the effort to conceal her loathing of him from Willow. After all the times she’d made _him_ sweat, though, even his soul had to be forgiven for delighting a bit in her discomfort.

“They’re with Buffy.”

“I hope they can make her understand. I didn’t want to hurt her. But I’m sure you agree that it was the right thing to do.”

Jenny was silent for a moment and Angel could almost hear the wheels turning as she tried to gauge his motives. Suspicious bitch. He could tell that, out of all of them, she was the only one who would see Willow as a possible romantic rival for Buffy, as a possible reason other than guilt and altruism for him to have ended his doomed love affair with the girl. Under other circumstances, he might have been glad that someone besides him appreciated Willow as more than just a shoulder to cry on and a helpful lackey with a knack for research and extraordinary computer skills, but now that very perception could well be a spanner in the works and Angel viewed it with something akin to alarm. He couldn't believe he'd once thought Jenny the least troublesome of Willow's self-styled protectors. If it weren’t for the fact that she had given him back his soul and thus saved Willow from a life of unimaginable pain and degradation, he’d almost wish that Angelus had killed the meddling gypsy that night at the school.

“I can’t give her the things she deserves. I hope that someday soon she sees that, as hard as it was for me to give her up, I did what was best for her.”

“Well, while I might wish that you had come to this realization _before_ you lost your soul, I’m glad you realize now what a mistake it is for you to be involved.”

The words “with Buffy” didn’t appear at the end of her remark and Angel got the gist of things. She was definitely warning him off Willow. He’d been right to be wary.

He did his best to look tormented. “I haven’t forgotten the curse, Jenny. How could I? Believe me, I don’t want Angelus to be free again any more than you do.”

He could feel Willow tense beside him at the mention of his demonic counterpart. He wondered how much of their conversation had registered with her. He had a feeling she understood more than she let on. In the past day or two, he’d come to believe that Willow’s condition was much more complicated than he or the others had previously thought. She wasn’t Drusilla, and her mind, being far more agile, had adapted in unique and far more convoluted ways than that of the fey creature who’d been his first “creation.” Maybe she wasn’t so much broken as she was... altered.

Letting his mind wander right now was a mistake however, and Angel quickly reined in his thoughts and refocused on the conversation at hand. Jenny Calendar was a cunning foe and if he wanted to stay ahead of whatever game she was playing, he’d have to pay close attention to everything she said, and everything she _didn’t_ say.

Her eyes didn’t meet his and he could tell his remark about his soul had discomfitted her. She quickly switched gears and addressed the girl by his side.

“Willow.” Her smile was forced and oozed treacle. “You look so pretty tonight.”

Willow said nothing, eyeing Jenny with the same suspicion she always did. Good girl.

“I don’t remember ever seeing you in that outfit before, is it new?”

Trust Jenny not to let go of her feud with him for a single moment. Even when talking to Willow, she had to fire a salvo at him. Willow stayed silent, so after an awkward moment, long enough for Jenny to get the point, Angel stepped in with an answer.

“Yes, it is. I thought new clothes would cheer Willow up, make her feel better. They always seemed to do the trick for Buffy.”

Evoking Buffy was a risky move, one that might have hurt Willow’s feelings and made her doubt _his_ , but if Jenny took it as a sign that Buffy was still the girl who held his heart, it would buy them both time and peace. He made sure Jenny’s eyes were elsewhere and then he squeezed Willow’s hand tight, hoping the gesture gave her encouragement and told her the truth, that he hadn’t been thinking of Buffy at all.

“Well, what a nice thing for you to do, Angel.”

Jenny’s smile was tight, her jaw almost strained with the effort of forcing herself to be civil and pleasant and Angel suppressed a chuckle at the thought of how much discomfort she would likely be in later as a result.

“It’s the least I could do. Surely you agree, Jenny.”

Angel could play the civility game as well as she could, probably better, and he seemed to have put her at rather a disadvantage. Now all he could do was see how the rest of the evening’s visit unfolded.

“Yes.” She looked around uncomfortably, obviously feeling uncertain once more. Her lack of a ready support system was telling on her resolve.

The silence that ensued was deafening. Willow continued to look at the ground or at Angel, never at Jenny, and the woman seemed at a loss for more to say. She was perceptive enough to realize that Willow wasn’t going to speak to her tonight, didn’t _want_ to speak to her. There was pain in her eyes and, for a moment, Angel almost felt sorry for her. She did, after all, care deeply for Willow and the girl’s antipathy for her had to be painful. Still, Angel’s sympathy had limits. Jenny was the enemy. If one of them had to suffer the pain of losing Willow, it was going to be her; Angel had no compunction about that.

“Well.” Jenny finally spoke. “Perhaps I should be going. It’s getting late and I’m sure Rupert’s waiting up for me.”

At first Angel wondered why she’d made that final remark. Surely she knew he wasn’t going to do her any harm. Unwelcome sympathy welled up in him again as he realized that Jenny was saying the words for her _own_ benefit, not his. She hadn’t understood before just what getting involved with Giles would mean, that whether he loved her or not, she would never be the center of his world. That would always be his Slayer. Right now, Giles would either still be with Buffy or would have fallen into worry-plagued sleep fretting about her after driving her home. He would not be waiting up for Jenny. Jenny would barely have crossed his mind tonight. He might well love her with what he believed was all his heart, but he was a Watcher, and the Watcher would always trump the man.

Angel felt for the woman. Falling for Rupert Giles had cost her dearly, and she continued to pay that cost every day. He wondered if he wasn’t the only one tethered to Sunnydale by strands of red hair alone. Once Jenny gave up the battle and accepted that Willow belonged to Angel, he could see her cutting her losses and leaving town. That would undoubtedly be best for her. She’d never be happy in a world where Buffy was always at the center. Duplicitous, cunning foe that she was, Angel could wish her well once she’d conceded defeat. He hoped for both their sakes that day was soon.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Willow.”

With that, she left. Angel listened to each step she took away from the mansion. At the sound of her car pulling away, Angel turned and saw Willow walking towards the stairs. She was upset, he could tell, and he wondered if there had been any other way to handle Jenny tonight. A way that would not have involved distressing Willow. It was all academic now, however, and Angel decided to stop his pointless ruminations and focus on repairing the damage he had caused. He followed Willow upstairs, waiting until they had reached their bedroom before speaking.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” he asked, knowing she wouldn’t answer.

He sat on the bed and patted the space next to him, hoping she would accept his silent invitation and sit beside him. She did, and Angel let go of the breath he’d been holding, a human reflex that hadn’t left him, for all its uselessness. Taking her hands in his, and feeling further relieved when she didn’t pull away, he continued.

“I didn’t mean what I said to Jenny. I want you to believe me. You _have_ to believe me. Nothing between us has anything to do with Buffy. Not the clothes I buy you, not the way I treat you, _nothing_. But I had to say those things, had to make Jenny believe that I still love Buffy. You have to understand. I know you know that they want to take you away from me. Buffy, Giles, Xander, Jenny, they are looking for any excuse. If they find out how I feel about you...”

Willow was looking at him with those eyes again, those soft, beautiful eyes so full of love, and Angel could no longer speak, he couldn’t think of any more words to say. So he kissed her.

It was a passionate kiss, full of all the emotion he couldn’t find the words to tell her he felt, full of all the love and lust and dominance and protectiveness and need that roiled within him, a tempest of feelings both pure and depraved, both saintly and demonic. All those violent, intense emotions that Willow inspired in him. Emotions he hoped with all his soul and demon had counterparts within her.

She responded, returning his kiss with an ardor equal to and even surpassing that she had expressed earlier that night. He moaned into her mouth as the kiss grew more passionate still, as they clung to each other ever more desperately. Even had he wanted to, Angel could not have stopped himself from taking her now, and if the way she held him and caressed him was any indication, she didn’t want him to stop in any case.

He broke off the kiss, taking in with pride her swollen lips and panting breaths. His hands moved to her sweater, pushing it down her shoulders as she helped him take it off. The rest of the task of undressing her was one he wanted to perform himself, so he stopped her as she began to undo the buttons on her blouse.

For all the memories he shared with Angelus, this would be the first time _he_ made love to Willow. The first time she shared her body with someone who loved her and cherished her. It was a momentous occasion and Angel wanted to make it perfect for the both of them, especially for Willow. She had endured so much. He wanted to teach her about making love, that it was something beautiful and caring, completely unlike the sexual degradation she had endured at the hands of his demon.

He untucked her blouse from her skirt and undid the buttons slowly, bending to plant a kiss on each patch of skin as he uncovered it. Willow’s eyes were bright with desire, but she was used to obedience and made no move to hurry him along. When he was done, the silk fabric slid easily down her arms and he made short work of finishing the job of removing it and tossing it aside, his eyes focused on what now lay open to his gaze: Willow’s breasts encased in soft, cream-colored lace.

If he had needed to breathe, he would never have been able to do so. There she was, still so innocent in spite of everything, her eyes wide, looking for all the world like the virgin she had been before Angelus had taken her. But there was a sensuality, too, a knowingness that beguiled him as surely as that purity of soul his demon had not been able to corrupt and destroy. She was an intoxicating paradox and his vow to take this slowly, to be gentle and patient, was being tested just by looking at her.

She got to her feet, surprising him by her defiance of his implicit command, unfastening her skirt and letting it puddle on the floor at her feet as she stepped out of it and stood before him. Her hand moved to his face and he covered it with his own while she caressed his cheek. She seemed unconscious of her near nudity and of the allure she possessed. But it certainly didn’t escape Angel’s notice.

He stood up also, bringing her hand to his lips briefly before taking her in his arms and kissing her again. He let his hands roam over her body, delighting in the softness of her skin, softness that shamed the cashmere and silk she’d so recently been wearing. She was yielding and pliant in his arms, but ardent as well, her need obvious as she gave herself over to him. Her arousal perfumed the air and he could hear his demon roar within him. This was not a scent Angelus had ever experienced and Angel gloated internally that he had brought her to this new place, a place where her desire was real and not something she had willed herself to feel in order to please his demon and spare herself the worst of his torments.

His hands moved to the clasp of her bra and he unfastened it, watching as the straps slid off her shoulders and the delicate garment fell to the floor. He sat back down on the bed as she stood before him. He gazed for a moment, drinking in her perfection. Then he drew her close and took one of her breasts in his mouth, gently teasing her nipple with his tongue and teeth, glorying in her moans and the heady scent of her deepening arousal.

He couldn’t be patient much longer, for all his good intentions, his own need was becoming too great; he sensed Willow’s was as well. He pulled her down towards the bed, the sudden movement causing her to fall onto her stomach; he rolled her onto her back. She giggled at his eagerness, one of those sunshine smiles he cherished lighting up her face.

“I love you.”

His voice was soft and for a moment he wasn’t sure she heard him, but she reached up and pulled his head towards hers, begging for a kiss, silently acknowledging his words. Certainly, he had hoped to hear those same three words from her, but he knew it was too much to expect and more than he deserved. It was enough that she was accepting _his_ love and sharing herself with him so trustingly.

He lay down beside her and began to kiss and caress her again. She surprised him by becoming more bold and taking some of the initiative, unbuttoning his shirt with eager, fumbling hands. This sign that she wanted him so badly nearly brought tears to his eyes and he helped her along, his own movements almost frenzied as he saw the desire in her eyes. His pants soon went the way of his shirt, her hands on his belt buckle making him willing to rip them off his body if need be and making him happier than ever before that he never saw a need to wear underclothes.

Now the only barrier between them was a thin scrap of cream-coloured lace, an easily replaced scrap at that. So Angel tore the panties from Willow’s body, not stopping to worry if the violence of his desire might frighten her. He was too far gone, his need too urgent, to pay heed to any misgivings he might have had about being so rough.

As if anticipating his wishes, or perhaps out of her own lust, Willow spread her legs for him. The contrast between her pale skin and the reddish brown curls that covered her sex was striking, almost too beautiful to be real. He knew he had to taste her, to show her one of the pleasures Angelus had been too selfish, too wrapped up in his own gratification, to share with her.

She gasped in surprise at the first touch of Angel’s tongue on her sex. Angelus had only done this to her once, and then only to taste her virgin’s blood the first time he’d brutalized her. He had never done this to bring her pleasure, to savour and devour her and to glory in her taste and scent and essence. Only Angel would truly know her, would truly experience her body in this most intimate way, use his tongue and lips and fingers and teeth to send her spiraling into ecstasy, know the power of giving her something that was all about her, even as it brought him a pleasure beyond the purely physical.

Soon she was shaking on the precipice of release and Angel sent her over the edge, delighting in the taste of her nectar.

“Angel!”

It was too much for him to take and he came as well, the sound of his name on her lips, the knowledge that she knew completely who she was with, causing him to experience a kind of sexual joy that he’d never known before. Willow had given herself to _him_ , shared herself with _him_ , and that knowledge was glorious.

It was only a moment later that he was hard again, his desire for her unslaked, and he moved up her body, positioned himself at her entrance, and was inside her in one thrust. He stilled for a moment, wanting to commit each sensation to memory, wanting to ensure that the look in her eyes as she felt him, Angel, inside her for the first time never left him. But it wasn’t long before she began urging him on with her moans, encouraging him to move, so he did. She cried out as he began to thrust, her hips rising to meet his, her legs wrapping around him. He couldn’t hold back and he could tell she didn’t want him to, so he gave all of himself to her, demon and man, in a way that was as much a first for him as it was for her. He gave and took, surrendered himself to her and conquered her, and they climaxed together, tears shining in both their eyes, his fangs in her breast, her scream of completion echoing in the air.

As they both came down from their sexual high, Angel pulled out of her body and drew her into his arms as he lay beside her on the bed.

“I love you, Willow.”

“I love you, Angel.”

The words may have been whispered, but Angel heard them and his heart soared. She loved him. She was his. Tonight she had given herself to him as completely as he had to her. Angel knew with unshakeable certainty that his soul must truly be his forever, because he had never known such rapture.

He held her tightly to him as she fell into an exhausted sleep in which he would soon join her. But he knew that when he awoke, he had some thinking to do. Tonight had made it necessary to face the reality of their situation, to think about the future, and to be willing to make some hard choices not just for himself, but for Willow as well. He only hoped that, when all was said and done, those choices would be ones that Willow could forgive him for.

  
Tbc...


	8. Chapter Seven

Escape Me Never (Chapter Seven)

She was still asleep. Angel was glad she hadn’t noticed his absence, hadn’t gotten up to look for him, hadn’t overheard him on the phone. He wasn’t sure if she would be happy with his plans, if she would willingly accept his decision about their future. For that matter, he wasn’t completely sure he did either. Was he really doing what was best for Willow? Or was he as selfish as his demon, taking her away from her friends, her family, the only home she had ever known, in order to keep her with him?

The slippery slope, the road to Hell.

He’d been so well-intentioned when this began, when he’d taken her in to help her heal after his demon had left her a broken shell. But then he’d fallen in love with her, allowed -hell, _encouraged_ \- her to fall in love with _him_ , and it seemed that he became more like his demon each day, each _hour_. He had to admit to himself that part of Willow’s current aversion to her friends was his doing. Both overtly and indirectly, he had influenced her to see them as the enemy, had never tried to bring back any good memories of them or reawaken her old feelings of love and friendship for people who had once been her nearest and dearest. He had kept her isolated, induced her to trust only _him_. She was as much _his_ creature now as she had once been Angelus’, and he hated himself for it. He hated himself because, God help him, he wouldn’t do anything to change it, no matter how far from redemption his actions had left him. Willow was his and he couldn’t make himself regret that.

But for all that she clung to him now, for all that she shied away from the people who had once been closer to her than her family, would she always feel this way? Or would she wake up one morning despising him for cutting her off from any chance of reclaiming the life she’d had before Angelus had ripped her from it and torn _her_ apart in the process? Would she hate him for taking away her opportunity to regain the friendships she’d once shared with Buffy, with Jenny and Giles, with Xander? He didn’t know. But no matter the guilt he felt over taking away her choices, over doing everything he could to bind her to him regardless of what she might feel in the future, he knew he wasn’t going to stop what he had set in motion. No calls to undo what was being done even as he got back into bed beside Willow. Guilt was something he should be well used to, after all. So he curled up against Willow’s warm body, delighting in her soft sigh as he pulled her close, and he joined her in slumber.

  
 _For a small town, Sunnydale seemed overly endowed with dark alleys, and here he was walking down one of them. With Willow, which wasn’t unpleasant. And Xander, which was. Why on Earth had Willow insisted on letting that useless twerp in on their search for the truth about Billy Fordham, anyway? They could have accomplished this mission just fine on their own._

Willow’s voice broke through his annoyed reverie.

“The only thing I could track down was this address. The Sunset Club. Still didn’t find anything incriminating.”

“He leaves no paper trail, no records. That’s incriminating enough.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to go with Deadboy on this one.”

Why couldn’t Xander be his usual idiotic self? As obnoxious as it was to argue with the boy, it was even *worse* to have the moron actually see things his way. Especially since he had to be irritating, even in concordance.

“Could you not call me that?” He realized the request was a mistake the moment the words left his lips. He just knew that “Deadboy” would be his permanent nickname from now on. Great. Just great.

They approached a door with a small, closed window in it. Could this place *be* any more cliched? He thought that sort of thing had faded away with the passage of the speakeasy. Let’s see just *how* stereotypical this place actually was.

He knocked and the window slid open. “We’re friends of Ford’s.” The man with the laughably contrived attempt at a menacing stare opened the door. Angel almost couldn’t contain his mirth. “Joe sent me,” or at least a variation on it, had actually worked. What clowns.

The place was a ludicrously over the top attempt at a gothic vampire lair. Black light, droning music, everyone wearing black lipstick and attempting to look disinterested... it was every bit the joke the doorman had led him to expect. He wondered if any of these pathetic wannabes were wearing plastic fangs. It wouldn’t surprise him. He just hoped that he didn’t look like these people when he was brooding. Maybe he needed to smile more often or something. It was so difficult to work on your facial expression without being able to see yourself in the mirror.

“Boy, we blend right in.”

Willow was right, of course. Her cheerful sweater and brightly-coloured skirt glowed like neon in the artificial gloom. Of course, had they been *alone*, he could have passed her off as his date, a newbie he was introducing to the nightlife. But with Xander along...

“No way do we stick out like sore thumbs.”

Thanks for restating what Willow just said, boy. But then, Xander always had to say *something*. He could never just shut up. For all that Buffy talked about Willow babbling, at least the girl always had something to say. Xander was another matter entirely. He had to get away from the boy before he forgot he had a soul and drained him dry.

“Let’s look around. You guys check out downstairs.”

“Sure thing, Bossy the Cow.”

Angel ground his teeth. The boy just had to get the last damn word.

He looked out over the balcony, trying to remember why the hell he was even here. Buffy. That’s right. He was here to make sure Buffy was safe, to uncover the truth about her old flame. The old flame that, even now, she was out gallivanting around with in yet another of the childish games she liked to play with his emotions.

‘I want you.’

‘I don’t want you.’

‘Come to me.’

‘Go away.’

‘I love you.’

‘I hate you.’

Angel was getting sick of it all. Sometimes it was hard to remember why he loved Buffy when she wasn’t right in front of him. Of course, when she was there, it didn’t seem to be a problem. Then again, when she was in front of him, he was usually too distracted by her generous display of her charms to do a great deal of thinking.

After all these years - centuries, in fact - it seemed that Liam hadn’t grown up one bit. Still an easy mark for blonde hair and uncovered flesh, still a boy with greedy appetites and a taste for an easy meal. How long before he became a man?

But then again, remembering the dream he’d had that day after visiting Willow last night, maybe he had...

Better to shake loose of these thoughts and get back to business. He looked down over the balcony, scanning for Willow, hoping that nothing had happened to her while he had left her alone with no one but Xander to keep an eye on her.

His eyes latched onto her striped sweater. She was standing close to Xander, touching him, obviously looking to him to keep her safe, and Angel’s gut clenched. What on Earth would make a smart girl like Willow see Xander as any sort of protector? For that matter, what did she even see in him as a friend?

He walked down the stairs to join them as they chatted with a voluptuous and incongruously cheerful girl who was dressed as some sort of amalgam of bar wench and Drusilla. Something bothered him. Maybe it was the look of adoration in Willow’s eyes as she gazed at Xander, a look the oblivious boy didn’t even notice. Or perhaps it was the way some of the male patrons were ogling Willow as if they, like the vampires they pretended to be, could smell her purity and ached to corrupt and devour it, just the way Angel had dreamt of doing only a few short hours ago. But whatever it was, it wasn’t what *should* be bothering him and Angel decided that he had to do something, anything, if only as a distraction from his increasingly troubled thoughts.

“Don’t be ashamed. It’s cool that you’re open to it,” the awkward girl chirped as Angel approached. “We welcome anyone who’s interested in the lonely ones.”

“The lonely ones?”

“Vampires.” He cut off Willow’s inquiry.

“Oh, we usually call them the nasty, pointy, bitey ones.”

Nice one, Xander, way to blend in.

The girl seemed unfazed. “So many people have that misconception. But they who walk with the night are not interested in harming anyone.” She took her eyes off Willow for a moment to collect her thoughts and Angel almost got the impression that she was trying to remember her lines. “They are...creatures above us, exalted.”

He couldn’t take it anymore. One more minute of listening to this incompetent poseur and he was going to be tempted beyond endurance to show her what those vampires she idolized were *really* like. Screw the mission. He already knew the important stuff anyway. Ford bad, Slayer stupid. No, not stupid, misguided, trusting. Yeah, that was the girl he loved: sweet, naive, trusting. His eyes never left Willow, until he spoke.

“You’re a fool.”

Willow and Xander turned back to look at him as the girl reacted.

“You don’t have to be so confrontational about it. Other viewpoints than yours may be valid, you know.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

“Nice meeting you,” Willow called after her. Something inside Angel grew tight. Sweet, naive, trusting...

“You really are a people person.” Trust Xander to act as though he hadn’t started it with his ‘nasty, pointy, bitey ones’ crack.

“Now nobody will talk to us.” Willow sounded disappointed. She still clung to Xander’s arm and Angel’s mood grew more sour.

“I’ve seen enough. I’ve seen this type before. They’re children making up bedtime stories of friendly vampires to comfort themselves in the dark.”

“Is that so bad?”

Why was Willow disagreeing with him? She was the clever one, the brains of the gang. He didn’t understand why she couldn’t see things clearly, the way he saw them. He found himself becoming argumentative.

“These people don’t know anything about vampires. What they are, how they live, how they dress.”

And of course, that was the moment that a young man dressed nearly identically to Angel came walking down the stairs, making him look a fool in front of Willow and Xander. He told himself that it bothered him more to look ridiculous in front of *Xander*.

“You know, I love a good diatribe,” the boy said. “But I’m still curious why Ford, the bestest friend of the Slayer, is hanging with a bunch of vampire wannabes.”

“Something’s up with him. You were right about that.” This time, Willow was addressing Angel and his mood lightened. He ignored the slight tingling of apprehension he felt as they left the club, the sixth sense that told him they had been overheard, shaking it off as an aftereffect of his lingering irritation. Time to walk the kids home.

Xander, true to form, didn’t shut up the entire way to his house. On and on and on about Buffy and Ford and what the hell did she see in him and why couldn’t she tell he was a bad guy. He was pathetically and obviously jealous and Angel could see just how much it hurt the beautiful girl walking beside him, her eyes shining with the wish that Xander would feel just a little bit of that passion for *her*. It was enough to make Angel sick. And angry. Both with Xander for being so stupid and oblivious and not returning Willow’s feelings and with Willow for wasting something as precious as her devotion on an ignorant buffoon like Xander. He was relieved when they reached the boy’s home at last. Maybe he could use the walk to Willow’s house to talk some sense into the girl.

She was uncharacteristically subdued as they made their way to her house, not responding to his attempts to converse with her, and Angel struggled to control his irascibility. He had no right to be upset with her, he reminded himself. But he stopped even trying to conjure up his feelings for Buffy to keep himself in line. What was the point? Without her barely-covered form in front of him, his passion for her couldn’t be re-evoked and he was tired of making the effort.

“Here we are.” She spoke for the first time since they had left Xander’s house.

“What will your parents think of you getting home so late?”

“Oh, don’t worry. They won’t know. They left for a conference this morning and they’ll be gone for a week. At least I think it’ll be a week. It might be longer. They said they’ll call if their plans change.” Her tone told Angel that this was far from the first time she’d been left alone this way.

She looked a bit forlorn and Angel had to restrain himself from taking her in his arms to soothe away her pain. He wanted nothing more than to break her parents’ necks for leaving her like this. Didn’t they love their daughter, want to spend time with her? Didn’t they at least realize that Sunnydale wasn’t safe?

“Can I come in for a minute?”

Willow gave an almost imperceptible sigh and Angel knew she thought he wanted to talk about Buffy.

“Sure, Angel.”

Her shoulders slumped slightly as she unlocked her front door and motioned for him to follow her in. He’d never seen her living room before and it was...sterile. It looked like a picture from a catalog; even the personal touches seemed perfunctory and decidedly *impersonal*, the photographs displayed because one was supposed to display family photographs, the knickknacks chosen for their monetary rather than sentimental value. He felt a pang for Willow; the room told him so much about her parents and her upbringing. No wonder she endured Xander’s disinterest. It was what she knew best.

They walked upstairs to Willow’s room in silence; he figured that Willow probably thought he wanted her to put her computer skills to work on the mystery of Billy Fordham once more. He waited ‘til they were past her door, then he spoke.

“He doesn’t love you.”

Willow whipped around and stared at him, her mouth hanging open.

“W-what do you mean?”

“Xander. He doesn’t love you, Willow. He never will.”

He saw tears form in her eyes and he hated himself for being the one to put them there. But dammit, he had to make her see that she was wasting her time on that fool. She would only be *more* hurt in the future if he couldn’t make her see reason *now*.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Angel. But I’d like you to leave now. Please.” On the last word, her voice almost broke and Angel could hear the pleading tone in her voice. She wanted him to leave before breaking down and crying herself to sleep. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Xander didn’t deserve her tears.

“He doesn’t deserve you, Willow.”

“You know, Buffy says the same thing. But it’s easy for you guys to talk. You don’t know what it’s like. Being me. The girl nobody wants. The girl nobody ever will.”

Angel couldn’t stand it for another moment. Hearing her say those things, knowing she meant them, knowing that, when she looked in the mirror, she was as invisible to herself as he was. So he did the only thing he could do to show her the truth. He caught her up in his arms and kissed her.

For a moment she struggled, her hands pushing futilely against his chest as she tried to get away, but soon she gave in. His passion overwhelmed her and she melted into him, returning his kiss, letting his hands roam over her body. After a few moments, he felt her need to breathe, so his mouth left hers and moved to her neck. He felt her breath against his ear and heard her soft whisper.

“Xander.”

Angel awoke, sitting bolt upright, panting for unneeded breath as he became aware of reality once more. It was a dream, that was all, just a horrible, terrible dream.

Still, he had never had a dream like that before, one so vivid, so real. One that mingled fact and fancy, memory and mirage so skillfully that he wasn’t sure which was which. There were things in the dream, Willow’s living room, for instance, that he had no way of knowing about. Yet he knew that, were he to go to Willow’s house right this minute, he would see the exact room he had seen in his sleep. There was something about this dream that told him that it was more than just a feverish nightmare, a projection of his insecurities. It carried prophecy and warning in its depths and Angel feared what it was telling him.

As he came back to himself, he realized that Willow wasn’t there beside him and he was confused by a seductive aroma that soon filled his nostrils.

Blood.

Willow’s blood.

He scented the air frantically, trying to determine where the smell was coming from, and he realized she was in the bathroom. The sound of her crying carried through the door and he became terrified that she was injured in some way. He got out of bed hastily and burst into the room, immediately seeing a pajama-clad Willow crouched down on the tile floor, no apparent injuries, but obviously in pain.

It took a moment, but he realized what was wrong. She was menstruating. Something that he recalled hadn’t happened to her since Angelus had taken her prisoner, her captivity having caused her body, like her mind, to shut down in some ways. Her obvious distress caused him almost as much agony as it did her, and the sight of her curled up on the floor in tears was more than he could take. He knelt down next to her, wrapping his arms around her and tamping down his demon. The last thing Willow needed right now was to be forced to deal with his appetites.

“Shh, sweetling. It’s alright now. I’m here.”

He saw some torn plastic wrapping on the floor and was suddenly grateful that Jenny had brought the necessary accouterments for just this eventuality when she’d initially helped stock the mansion for what she’d believed was going to be Willow’s short stay with him. He never would have thought to buy them.

“Hurts,” she whimpered, sounding like a little girl wanting someone to make it better. “Ow.”

He held her close and stroked her hair, murmuring soothingly in her ear. Then he lifted her up in his arms, wincing as she made some pain-filled sounds, and carried her back to the bed. The smell of her blood, thick and warm, filled his nostrils and it was all he could do to keep his true face from emerging, so strong was the desire he felt. It was obvious to him, however, that any overtures of that kind would not be welcome now, so he fought to control himself as he laid her gently on the bed, tucking her in like a child, making sure she was warm, asking her what he could do to make her more comfortable.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Willow?”

She looked positively miserable, her agony clearly etched on her features.

“Hold me?” She spoke so softly that he almost didn’t hear her.

He smiled at her, trying to hide the fact that he’d been hoping she’d ask him to cook for her and afford him an excuse to get out of the room and away from the scent of her blood.

“Of course, sweetheart.”

He climbed back into bed beside her, stifling a groan as she laid her head on his chest. He stroked her hair, murmuring soothingly to her, and she soon fell asleep. Angel wasn’t nearly so lucky. The warmth of her body, the way she smelled...it was torture for him to be next to her right now and it brought forth a fresh wave of self-hate. The girl he loved was lying in his bed, wracked with pain, and all he could think about was tearing off her nightclothes, spreading her legs, and burying his head between her thighs, no matter what _she_ wanted. Was it because his soul was anchored that his demon and its desires seemed so much harder to repress than they had the first time he’d been cursed? Or was it that Willow was the common obsession of both halves of him that made it so difficult to be anything but selfish when it came to her?

Then there was the dream. The dream that he knew was _more_ than just a dream. But what was it trying to tell him? Was it warning him that Willow still had feelings for Xander? He knew that, before his demon had taken her, she’d loved the boy desperately. That it was, ironically enough, her unrequited love for Xander that had put her in harm’s way and led, by such a twisted and tortuous path, to her being here with _him_ right now. Still, Angel thought, she had told him that she loved him and he couldn’t make himself even consider the idea that those words had merely been the product of her breaking at the hands of his soulless counterpart. She meant them. She had to have meant them.

Was it trying to make him aware of some other threat? Was it telling him that Xander would try to take Willow away from him? That was a ridiculous notion. Xander barely visited. As far as Angel could see, he cared little for the girl who’d been his friend almost all his life. He was almost certainly focused only on the fact that he might now have a chance with Buffy and he hardly seemed concerned if Willow lived or died. After all, if he cared about Willow even half as much as he had formerly claimed to, he wouldn’t be so absent. The idea that there might be less ignoble reasons for Xander’s infrequent visits, reasons having to do with guilt and fear rather than unconcern and selfishness, entered and left his mind in a trice. Angel refused to give Xander credit for a depth of feeling sufficient to make such a notion at all credible. He’d never evinced any kind of real devotion before and Angel could not credit him with developing the capacity for such caring now.

But if it wasn’t Willow’s feelings or Xander’s interference he needed to apprehend, then what was it?

He couldn’t take any more. Between his fears, his uncertainties, and the seductive scent of his sleeping lover, his need became overwhelming.

“Willow.” He shook her softly, hoping that a gentle approach would at least seduce her into wanting to give him what he was about to take. “I need you.”

She awoke at the first sound of his voice, and her eyes grew wide; for a moment there was a look of pleading in them. But he knew there was too much intense want shining from his own for her to persist. She got out of bed and Angel wondered what she was doing. He understood when he saw her enter the bathroom, reemerging a moment later naked, wrapped in a towel, and walking awkwardly with her legs close together.

“It’s alright,” he soothed. “You’ll feel so good, I promise.”

She was still uncertain, he could tell, and he wished she was as eager to be tasted as he was to taste her, but she wasn’t resisting and that was good. Once he’d shown her how much ecstasy this would bring them both, he knew that she’d be glad she’d given in.

He got up and stepped behind her as she stood by the bed. He unwrapped the towel and positioned it on the bed, knowing that she’d be more comfortable with it there.

He kissed her neck, then spoke softly once more. “Lie down, sweetling.”

She did as he asked, making sure that her bottom rested on the towel. She blushed under Angel’s gaze and he smiled. He loved her blushes.

He rejoined her on the bed, spreading her legs gingerly, not wanting to frighten her with the fierceness of his desire, and better able to restrain his demon now that he knew he was going to satisfy his thirst.

He closed his eyes and nearly drowned in the scent of her. It was the pure female essence of his love. Here between her thighs he had found the closest thing to heaven he would ever know and he wanted to revel in every sensation.

When his tongue found her center, he could hardly restrain himself. He fought his demon for control with all his might, wanting to keep his attentions gentle, to pay as much attention to Willow’s pleasure as his own, but the battle was a hard-won thing. The flavour of her was extraordinary. Powerful, pure, glorious. He felt as though he could taste her love for him in the mixture of blood and burgeoning arousal that flowed from her. He needed more, as much as he could coax from her, trickle though it was. Only in her blood could he find relief for the dread that still clouded his thoughts after that horrible dream. Only her blood could give him the certainty that she was _his_ , all his.

Soon she was screaming out her release As she came down from the high of her orgasm, he knew from the way she looked at him that she was surprised that he didn’t stop, didn’t give himself to her, fill her. But that wasn’t what he needed. He needed her to fill _him_. So he continued to drink, to drown his fears in what blood her body was willing to give him as if it were the liquor he’d been so wont to imbibe in his human days, and she was soon too caught up in the pleasure he gave her to question him again. If each drop of her blood that now flowed through him and each orgasm he gave her weren’t links in a chain that would bind her to him forever, at least it felt that way for now. And that was what mattered.

  
Tbc...


	9. Chapter Eight

Escape Me Never (Chapter Eight)

  
 _Eyghon._

A demon Angel had never heard of before had possessed him tonight. The possession had been brief, but the effect on Angel remained. It had made him aware of the power of his demon in an unwelcome and terrifying way, a way that had made his soul feel imperiled, as if the cord binding it to him was frayed and raveling.

Oh sure, he’d put on a brave front. Willow had begged him to help Jenny Calendar and Buffy, had come up with this idea herself, and he hadn’t wanted her, or Xander and Giles and Jenny for that matter, to know how frightening and painful saving the day had been.

But it had.

It wasn’t Eyghon that had done the damage, though. It was his own demon. The demon whose strength, power, need, and lust he had felt swell with life inside of him. The demon who had pushed his soul aside as if it were nothing, roaring with joy at being the one in charge, if only for a moment. No one could ever know how hard it had been for Angel’s soul to regain supremacy. The struggle may have been invisible to outsiders, but inside Angel it had been as pitched a battle as any ever fought with guns or tanks or bombs, and one at least as uncertain of a favorable outcome.

Buffy had noticed only his brief physical weakness. For all the feelings she professed to have for him, the girl he loved, his soulmate, his Slayer, the girl who was the key to his redemption couldn’t see the fear in his eyes, couldn’t see beneath the mask to the damaged man within. She’d hardly been able to look at him from the moment he’d been possessed, the reminder that he indeed was a vampire seeming to repulse her. She’d allowed the man who had just saved her life to go home alone with barely a word of regret, just excuses about having to placate her mother. He was almost glad of that. He needed some time by himself. To think. To recover. To believe in his love without the reality in Buffy’s face to give the lie to what he so wanted to be true.

Oh hell, he was brooding, and he was lying to himself. He didn’t want to be alone at all. For all his strength, for all the time he had spent fighting the forces of darkness without *and* within, tonight’s events had left him feeling broken and needy. What he craved was a warm, comforting pair of arms to hold him and a soft voice telling him that everything was going to be okay, that he was brave and true and that his soul was mightier than his demon.

Those things, he was all too aware, were not going to be his.

Then the doorbell rang.

Angel’s heart soared for a moment. Buffy was here, she had sensed the truth after all. She really *was* his soulmate, the one who loved *all* of him. But then he noticed something, or rather the *absence* of something. He couldn’t sense the presence of the Slayer. He wondered who else it could possibly be at this hour. It had better not be any of the Scoobies needing his help.

He was almost in game face when he flung open the door and the girl on the other side flinched.

“What is it, Willow?”

He didn’t want to be rude, but he really wasn’t in the mood for company. And if Buffy needed saving again...he wasn’t sure he was in the mood for that either.

“I just... I... I wanted to make sure you were okay. Which you are, so I’ll be going now.”

She quickly turned to leave and Angel instantly felt awful. Here she’d come by to see him out of concern and he’d practically chased her away. He took hold of her arm just before she moved out of reach.

“No, no, Willow. I’m sorry. Please come in.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause if you’re busy, or you’d just rather be alone, I can go.”

“No, actually, I was just thinking I’d really like some company. I’m glad you came.”

He tried to keep the pleading tone out of his voice, but he was sure he must have sounded almost desperate.

“Really? ‘Cause, no offense, Angel, but you didn’t seem so big with the welcome there just now.”

Despite her uncertainty, she entered the apartment, much to Angel’s almost too intense relief.

“I thought you were the neighbor kids playing a prank again. They’ve been doing that.”

He almost winced. That had to be the lamest excuse ever concocted.

“Oh my gosh. Did you tell their parents?”

Trust Willow to believe him. Her naivete, especially tonight, was like sunshine coming through the clouds.

“I didn’t want to get them in trouble.”

“That’s nice of you.”

She stood in the middle of the apartment and the silence began to feel awkward.

“Would you like to sit down, Willow?”

“Yeah, sure. If I’m not imposing, I mean...”

He interrupted. “Willow, it’s alright. I invited you in, remember?”

“Oh...yeah, I guess you did.”

“What made you come by tonight?”

Angel was honestly curious. She’d said she was here to check on him and see if he was okay, but he wasn’t quite sure what she meant. Of course, it was probably because of how woozy he had been after Eyghon had been cast out of his body, but a part of Angel hoped that maybe she’d noticed something more. Fat chance of that.

“Well, I thought Buffy would be here with you, what with all you went through having that demon inside you and all - the other one, I mean, not the one you usually have, ‘cause that one’s probably not such a big deal after all this time, though maybe it is, I don’t actually know what it’s like to have a demon...”

Angel quirked a questioning eyebrow at her, inwardly wondering how she could possibly go so long without breathing. He tried not think about her words, but she kept on talking and that became impossible.

“Oh, but you want to know why I’m here. Well, like I said, I kinda thought Buffy would be here, but then she called me and she told me she hadn’t even walked you home, not that you really need the Slayer to protect you, because *hello* vampire, but still... and I just thought that maybe somebody should check and see if you were okay and all and, well, I know that it would be better if it was Buffy, but I didn’t really want to say anything to her, so... here I am. Are you okay?”

*There* was the warmth and the understanding he had so desperately wanted, buried in the tangle of Willow’s words, shining from her wide green eyes. It almost undid him. As it was, he found himself unsteady on his feet. She had noticed. Out of all of them, *Willow* - not Buffy - was the one who noticed.

She kept on noticing.

“Angel, do you need to sit down?”

She was at his side in an instant, her normal awkwardness around him seemingly forgotten as she helped him to the sofa and sat down beside him.

“I guess the demon thing really did take a lot out if you, huh? Gosh, Angel, I’m really sorry about that. If I’d thought there was any other way...but the demon would naturally be drawn into a dead body and you’re the only dead guy I know, the only one walking around, I mean, and I knew *your* demon would drive it out and it would have nowhere else to go and then...”

He put his finger to her lips. “It’s okay, Willow. It’s okay. It had to be done. Actually, it was a really clever plan. I’m impressed. I mean, I always knew you were the brains of the outfit, but still...”

He let his words drift off, entranced by the expression on her face. She was beaming, obviously delighted by his compliments. There was a desperate quality to her happiness, though, that he began to sense, as if she was holding onto that joy for dear life, as if she never expected to be thought so well of again, and it took the edge off the warmth he found in her company. He wasn’t the only needy one in the room. It hurt.

“I’m sure you hear stuff like that all the time.”

She didn’t answer. He had known she wouldn’t when he said it and he felt guilty immediately. He had used his words to shut her down, not wanting to deal with someone else’s loneliness and pain. He had been selfish. But he didn’t know how to undo the damage, so he waited for her to say something.

It seemed like the silence might last forever, but just before it became too uncomfortable to bear, she spoke.

“Yeah. Everyone bows down before me.”

The bitterness in her voice was just a faint undercurrent - he wasn’t even sure she was aware of it - but it was there and it stung him. Stung him because he was suddenly mindful of the fact that she too had experienced what it was like to give everything you had and have it be treated with casual disdain. Willow was the brightest one of them all, but everyone - even Angel himself - took her for granted, never acknowledging the importance of her contribution to Buffy’s fight. And now, here she was: the only one out of them all to even see what he had risked for them all tonight.

Why did it have to be *her*? Her presence only made him more aware of his anger, his resentment, and his uncertainty about what he had so wanted to be incontrovertible truth: His love for Buffy. Her love for him. That it was their destiny to be together. For a moment, he almost blamed *Willow* for the way he was feeling. He wished she hadn’t come to see him. It was a relief, however, when her voice broke him out of his reverie. Thinking was almost too painful right now.

“Angel? Maybe I should go. You kinda look like you wanna be alone so...”

She made a move to get up and suddenly what he thought he wanted a moment ago become something he’d do anything to prevent.

“No, please. Please stay.”

The words, and the raw need in his voice, frightened him as he spoke. How could he be so weak, so naked, in front of someone he barely knew?

Perhaps it was because she knew *him*. She had come to *him*, thought of *him*, trusted *him* to defeat Eyghon that night. She had faith in the power of his soul to control his demon and she accepted that both were a part of him. She believed in him. And she’d recognized that this had been no easy fight for him, even as she had trusted in his ability to win it. This was powerful, and it was humbling.

“I... I could really use the company tonight.”

She settled back on the couch and Angel nearly sighed. She was staying. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

“It was hard.”

Those three words seemed to affect her strongly. The look in her eyes was warm and...full. Just...full. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

“Thank you, Angel.”

“For what?” He was genuinely surprised. Why was she grateful?

“For saving Buffy. And Miss Calendar. And for defeating Eyghon. I mean, I wasn’t even sure the plan would work and you took this huge risk. I mean, letting a demon possess you? That’s really scary. I mean, it is to me, anyway, and I just want you to know that it means a lot. I mean, I’m sure Buffy told you the same thing, but...”

Her voice trailed off. She’d obviously seen the truth in his eyes and didn’t know what else to say.

Buffy had told him none of those things, her expression of thanks dismissive, perfunctory, and devoid of any genuine gratitude. She always took his abilities for granted and hated the powerful reminder tonight had given her of the source of those same abilities. Angel didn’t know how much longer he could force himself to ignore the truth: Buffy could never love his demon, and thus she could never really love *him*.

Without his even noticing, his hand had moved to Willow’s cheek and he was surprised to discover that she didn’t move away, neither guilt nor fear causing her to shrink from his touch.

“I’m the one who should be thanking *you*.”

It was her turn to be puzzled.

“Why?”

“For trusting me. For understanding.” His voice almost broke. The look in her eyes, the way they grew slightly wider as she mulled over his words, imbibing the full measure of meaning behind them, what shone in them was everything he had fantasized lay behind Buffy’s guarded, thoughtless gaze.

If only.

If only he could take Willow in his arms right now, pour his need into that sweet, trusting soul, find solace in her kiss and in the warmth of her soft body. If only he’d seen past the alluring trappings of a tart-ish blonde Slayer to the quiet purity that could have well and truly brought him both redemption and affinity. There might have been a time when Willow could have been his for the taking. But that time wasn’t now.

He needed to shock himself free of the spell of those eyes.

“Xander’s a lucky guy.”

The non sequitur caught her off guard and the pain that shadowed her face for a moment made Angel feel worse than a cad for how he was repaying her kindness.

“It’s that obvious?”

He wanted to lie. To soften the blow he himself had struck by telling her that her feelings were well-hidden, that he was just perceptive. But he couldn’t. He only wished he could believe that the only reason for that was his respect for her, not a fierce jealousy that filled him to the point of wishing for her to be alone forever rather than in the arms of someone else.

He didn’t have to answer, she saw the truth in his face as easily as ever he had seen her hopeless passion for her callow best friend.

“I better go. I kind of snuck out of my house and...well...what if my mom or dad checks in on me? Not that they ever do, but there’s always a first time and...”

Even when she was trying to make an excuse to get away from a painful conversation, she just couldn’t lie. But he didn’t say a word in reply, just let her walk out the door, waiting a moment before following her to make sure she got home safely, though without her even noticing her guardian.

More than anything he wished there was some way to go back to the beginning. To come to Sunnydale anew, to be there for Willow from the beginning, to be the shoulder she leaned on when her childhood friend was turned, to take Xander’s place as her rock, to have never been Buffy’s swain. If there were only a way to do that...

  
Angel awoke in a panic, though at first he wasn’t sure why. This dream had been no obvious nightmare. Why was he filled with a sense of helplessness and terror?

He could still see it all so clearly in his mind; that alone was unusual and unsettling. Like the one he’d had the night before, tonight’s dream was startlingly realistic. So real, in fact, that it was hard to believe it was a dream at all. But it was. And this dream, like the other, had that same warning about Xander, though far more subtle this time.

For all its realism, however, it wasn’t real. He knew it wasn’t real. He remembered that night. Buffy _had_ walked him home, and he’d had no doubts about his love for her then. Yet when he reached for his actual memories, they were more like faded photographs than living things. The feelings that he had still been able to sense in his recall even when he’d lost his soul weren’t there anymore. He remembered the _fact_ that he had loved Buffy, but not the sensation of it. It was as though someone else had loved her, someone who wasn’t him, souled or no. That was what was frightening.

He went over and over both dreams and realized that both were revisionist not just in terms of events, but in terms of how he felt in so many ways. Yesterday, he’d been so focused on the obvious warnings that he’d missed the subtleties. But tonight the dream had reversed itself and the changes in his feelings stood out in high relief.

He clutched madly at the fraying fabric of what had once been. He had loved Buffy. It had been real and true and profound. It had to have been. If it hadn’t, the loss of his soul had been a small and petty thing, and Willow’s suffering had been caused by nothing but lust and selfishness. He couldn’t bear the thought of that.

What was happening to him?

Since he’d been cursed once more, his focus had been on Willow. For all his brooding, he’d not been introspective. He’d just assumed that he was who he had been the first time he had been cursed, taken it for granted that he’d slipped back into the same skin. But had he?

Looking into his mind, his heart, reaching for the all-encompassing guilt, the self-loathing, the need to atone, all the things that had once completely defined him, he discovered that they weren’t there. Any guilt and self-hatred stemmed from what his soulless self had done to Willow. To his surprise, and even more shockingly, not to his horror, he felt no real guilt about the havoc he’d wreaked on Sunnydale, or even the hideous fate of Cordelia. That was Angelus, not him.

Angelus...not him. This was the difference, and it was stunningly profound. The very fact of his soul being anchored made him someone he had never been before. The precarious state of his soul the first time he had been cursed, even though he hadn’t known it was so, had created the self-hatred, the need to separate himself entirely from his demon while at the same time never feeling that he was truly separate. But now...now he was one being, one harmonious whole, a man unlike anyone he had ever been before. He didn’t feel the same responsibility for every life Angelus had taken, or even for every drink Liam had taken. He wasn’t Liam, or Angelus, or the Angel first brought to life by the gypsy curse, or even simply an amalgam of the three; he was someone new, and now his mind was distancing itself from those previous incarnations, subsuming the memories of who he had been before into the mind of the end product of an evolutionary process he suddenly understood he’d been going through from the moment Darla had turned him, perhaps even before.

He supposed this was a good thing, a blessing even, but feeling as if he had spent centuries as the pawn of some inexorable fate was more than a bit chilling. It took a lot to make a demon feel tiny and helpless, but that was precisely what Angel was experiencing right now.

Willow lay beside him, still sleeping off her exhaustion from the demands of the night. He curled up beside her again, pulling her close and taking comfort from the warmth of her body and the sound of her heartbeat. Maybe it wasn’t such a terrible thing. If she was his destiny, perhaps Fate was no bad master.

  
TBC...


	10. Chapter Nine

Escape Me Never (Chapter Nine)

  
Willow was still asleep when Angel arose, her soft snores making him smile as he looked at her face, so peaceful in repose, the lines of womanly pain finally smoothed around her eyes. His movements were quiet as he put on his robe and began to tidy the room, removing all signs that he slept here. He’d gotten lax on that score of late, but something inside him made him wont to readopt his formerly cautious habits. So he smoothed down the coverlet over his half of the bed, picked up yesterday’s clothes and shoes, and silently exited the bedroom.

He made his way down the hall towards the room that was supposedly his, missing Willow’s presence even as he did so. He wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed next to her, to watch her sleep, to listen to her breathe. But he wouldn’t. His recent carelessness could not continue. As a predator, he knew better than to be unwary, to give his foes a chance to prey on _him_. It was late in the morning and, while it was highly unlikely at this point, there was still a chance that one of the annoying fools who believed themselves to be Willow’s nearest and dearest might drop by. Better safe than sorry was an excellent maxim and one well worth heeding.

He disposed of his dirty clothing and chose his apparel for the day, lingering over the selection process a bit for reasons of which even he wasn’t quite certain. What with the power and strangeness of his dreams and realizations over the past few days, however, he wasn’t going to question the instincts that guided him; he would let them lead him where they would. So he made a leisurely affair of getting dressed and freshening up, the inability to use a mirror to guide him long since having ceased to be the slightest inconvenience. Still, for the first time in many a long year, he missed being able to see his reflection. Mostly, he thought, because he wondered what Willow saw when she looked at him.

Willow. It wouldn’t do for her to wake up and find him gone. So he rumpled the bed slightly to make it look as if it had been made in haste - a touch he thought added some bachelor authenticity to his ruse, though he was actually quite meticulous in his habits - then exited the room once more, leaving the door enough ajar to make it look as if he expected to return there sometime soon.

Halfway back to his sleeping love, he heard it. The knock at the front door that made him thank whatever had been the source of this morning’s instincts. There was a visitor - a visitor he was prepared for, despite his lack of any conscious foreknowledge of their arrival.

He took the stairs one at a time, not hurrying, but not dawdling either. Who could it be at this hour? It was just before noon and it was Wednesday. Shouldn’t all of the usual intruders be at school at this hour? Sure, he’d thought earlier that there was a _theoretical_ possibility that one of them might show up, but that was more a random conjecture, a notion he’d entertained to encourage himself to readopt habits of punctiliousness and prudence, not an idea he’d seriously considered.

With a sick feeling, he wondered if perhaps Buffy, in some sort of vengeful fit of temper, had told Willow’s parents where she was and they’d come to reclaim her. But no, that wasn’t possible. He had people keeping track of them and they were in Philadelphia right now, well out of reach of any of Willow’s meddling friends. At least that made _one_ thing he didn’t have to worry about.

Now he was steps away from the door and his curiosity would be slaked. He could hear the heartbeat behind the solid wood and he caught a familiar scent...a puzzling and unsettling one.

It was Xander.

What on Earth was the boy doing here? He had once been an annoyingly regular visitor, but, not surprisingly to Angel’s way of thinking, his appearances had dropped precipitously within a few weeks; Willow’s lack of what he would deem progress seeming to leave him with little desire to try to regain her companionship. Angel had figured that her silence and inaptness for the task of serving as his tutor/sounding board any longer had left the boy with no further interest in pretending to be her friend. He’d never believed Xander had any unselfish or genuine feelings of fealty towards the girl who’d once made him the center of her world. So what was the boy doing here in the middle of the day? Especially since Angel’s recent breakup with Buffy had opened up an opportunity Xander had been praying for to whatever gods ruled teenage fantasies since the day Angel had first held Buffy’s hand. Memories of his recent dreams came to mind, but Angel ruthlessly suppressed them. Xander Harris couldn’t actually be a threat to his life with Willow... could he?

There was only one source of answers to Angel’s questions, and that was Xander himself, whose nod to decent manners in the form of his knock at the door was as jarring as his unexpected - and unwelcome - appearance on Angel’s doorstep. So Angel turned the knob and invited Xander to come in.

“So. What brings you here this morning? I would have thought you’d be in school.”

As he spoke, Angel took in the boy’s appearance. He had to admit it was shocking. Gone were the bright eyes and the almost manic, clownish energy. In their place were eyes almost obscured by dark circles and bags underneath that spoke of little sleep and likely nightmares, and the aura of someone both feverishly awake and nearly comatose. There was a desperate, haggard quality to Xander’s mien and his clothes looked more rumpled and disheveled than could be accounted for by his normal lack of sartorial flair. His hair was uncombed, unkempt, and overgrown. He was, in short, an absolute wreck. Angel wondered what had brought the boy to such a state, though his interest was unmixed with sympathy.

“I’m here to see Willow.”

“Really? Just decided out of the blue, after all this time, that you had to see Willow? Guess it’s as good an excuse as any to cut school.” Angel couldn’t keep the disdain out of his voice, not that he actually tried. It was better than manifesting the fear Xander’s role in his dreams had left him with. He remembered the time when Xander had been possessed by the hyena spirit. Best not to show any trace of weakness, even to someone who’d only been at the top of the food chain for the briefest of moments long ago.

“Look, Deadboy, as much as I love these witty exchanges with you, I just want to see Willow, okay?”

Interesting. What had started as snark had ended on a note of pleading Angel knew Xander hadn’t intended. He really _was_ a wreck. And a careless one at that. The boy didn’t seem like much of a threat at all now. Maybe Angel’s dreams had been using Xander to symbolize something or someone else. A voice inside him, however, told him not to get complacent or cocky. After all, the dumb kid had occasionally been known to pop out of the puzzle with something. It would do Angel well to stay wary.

“She might still be asleep. I’ll go check.”

“Why don’t I go up with you?”

“What’s the emergency?” Angel felt like he was on a roller coaster, rocketing back to his former state of fearful concern about what the boy might be up to, and he didn’t like it. He was used to being in control, of knowing the rules of the game and what all the players were up to; he didn’t have that luxury right now and he didn’t like it one bit.

“It’s been weeks since I’ve seen my best friend and I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. How’s that for an emergency?” Xander’s eyes were almost wild and Angel could see that his fatigue had nearly undone him.

“Fine. Come upstairs with me.”

It didn’t surprise him when Xander chose to follow him up the stairs.

 _Buffy had gone off to fight the Master on her own. Angel had a few choice words for that kind of stupidity. Words like cocky, ridiculous, even suicidal. He had another word for it too - annoying. Because boy was he ever annoyed right now. Traveling through the tunnels on the heels of one Xander Harris was guaranteed to make him pray to be staked, and soon. That boy had to be the most exasperating and plaguesome creature ever born. How else to explain his reluctance to rush off to help the girl who destiny had chosen for him but the fact that Xander had been the one to bring him the news that she was in peril? Of course, that did beg the question of how Buffy could possibly be the love of his unlife if he could be so easily discouraged from wanting to save her, but that was something Angel wanted desperately not to think about. Oh, for a distraction right about now._

And at that moment, there it was. An obnoxious, hate-filled stare shot back at him by Xander.

“What?” Angel couldn’t imagine what on Earth he’d somehow managed to do to piss Xander off just by walking behind him.

“You were looking at my neck.”

For the love of all that was unholy... As if he would even *consider* feeding off of that obnoxious loudmouth. He’d rather eat rats for all eternity than taste one drop of Xander’s blood. First he thinks he can compete for Buffy’s affections and now he thinks Angel wants to sink his fangs in and have a snack? What were they putting in kids’ lunches these days? The boy was well past delusional. His blood would no doubt render any vampire unfortunate enough to drink it completely insane.

“What?!?”

“You checked out my neck. I saw that.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

How far had he come down in the world to be having an argument like this with some ridiculous mortal? For a moment, he wished he didn’t have a soul. How satisfying it would be to end the whole conversation by snapping the very neck under discussion and leaving the boy’s loathsome corpse behind for those rats who were looking mighty tasty right now to devour.

“Just keep your distance, pal.”

“I wasn’t looking at your neck.”

Focus, Angel. Remember the point of this whole excursion. Buffy. Just keep thinking about saving Buffy.

“I told you to eat before we left.”

Maybe the Master would kill Xander. A vampire could dream, couldn’t he?

They made it to Willow’s bedroom without Angel feeling even the slightest threat of being staked in the back. That was a blessing. Though he doubted Xander was in any condition to do him real injury, he hadn’t been sure the boy was rational enough not to try.

Angel knocked gently on her door. “Willow, are you awake? Xander’s here.”

He could hear some rustling movements and knew she was getting out of bed.

“Let’s give her a moment to get dressed, okay?”

Xander looked irritated and impatient, but he said nothing, a fact for which Angel was almost impossibly grateful. It never ceased to amaze him just how aggravating even the smallest sound from Xander could be.

It was a bit startling when the door began to open slowly, but Angel kept his composure, trying not to show how very much he dreaded that Willow’s initiative in granting them entrance might be due to eagerness to see her one-time crush.

She looked so adorable that it was all Angel could do not to take her in his arms. Sleep-tousled hair framing her face; red plaid pajamas with a matching robe; those big, green eyes that never failed to bewitch him. He’d be willing to drink every drop of Xander’s rancid blood in order not to lose this girl.

“Good morning, Willow.”

“Hey, Will.”

Willow said nothing; she simply stepped back and allowed them through the doorway, her eyes moving back and forth between him and Xander uncertainly.

“Could you leave us alone now? I’d like to talk to Willow without you interfering.”

Xander turned and looked at him in that impatient yet apprehensive way again, leaving Angel extremely anxious about what the boy wanted to do. Did he want to turn her against him? Did he want to try to spirit her away? The problem was there was really no way he could refuse Xander’s request. Not now, not without bringing the righteous wrath of Jenny and Giles down on his head. Those self-styled protectors were already becoming more and more suspicious of him, feeling that Willow should be back to her old self by now. Ignorant, insensitive fools.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to refuse. Within seconds of the words leaving Xander’s mouth, Willow was clinging to Angel’s arm, her eyes wide with panic. Willow was refusing for him.

“I’m not going to leave if Willow doesn’t want me to, Xander. I’m sorry. She’s been forced to do things against her will far too many times for me to put her through that again, no matter how good your intentions are.”

Take that, you moron.

Xander’s face took on the look of a deer caught in the headlights of the largest truck ever to barrel down a highway.

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll just have to say what I want to say then.”

He took a huge breath and Angel was more than slightly curious as to what this was all about. Xander was going to spill his guts in front of him? This he had to see.

He guided Willow to sit on the bed and he sat beside her. He had a feeling they would both need to be comfortable for this.

Xander sat down on the other side of Willow, further away from her than Angel, but still too close for his liking.

“I know it’s been a long time since I’ve been here to see you, Will. And I understand if you hate me. I hate me. It’s just that...” Xander was fidgeting nervously, his eyes downcast, focused on some point on the carpet, not on the girl he was addressing. “I couldn’t face you.”

Angel felt Willow flinch as she leaned against him and he fought the urge to smile. Attaboy, Xander, dig your own grave.

Xander somehow seemed to notice the effect his words had on Willow and he sighed, obviously exasperated with himself. Angel tensed.

“I mean...I couldn’t face you because it’s all my fault. Every time I looked at you, every time I thought about what that bastard did to you, I just...I know that none of it would ever have happened if it wasn’t for me. If you hadn’t walked in...hadn’t seen...you’d have been safe in the library and Angelus would never have been able to get to you. You’d be okay.”

Angel could feel the change in Willow’s demeanour and he saw the way her expression changed. She was mulling over Xander’s words and he wished he knew exactly what it was she was thinking. If only the boy’s loathing for him had won out and he’d just left after a few polite words.

Willow was silent, her own eyes downcast. All Angel could do was wait to see how she would react after the boy had finished.

Certainly, some aspects of Xander’s confessional were enjoyable: the pained occlusion of his jaw before he spoke, the humiliation in his eyes, the self-hatred and shame that rolled off him in fragrant waves, perfuming the air with the boy’s palpable misery at laying himself so agonizingly bare in front of the creature he despised more than any other in the world, at exposing the pink underbelly of his emotions and leaving himself shockingly vulnerable. Angel could feel his fangs descend, at least mentally. How raw and wounded the boy was...

But it wasn’t enough. There was still the fact that, with each word that came from that inexpert tongue, Angel could only listen in silent dread, carefully watching Willow’s eyes. Would the next admission be the one that reawakened her feelings for the boy she had once loved, the stake through the heart of all Angel’s dreams and plans for the two of them? After a reign of terror famed throughout the world, after having faced and fought the most skilled and fearsome of enemies, would he, at the end of the day, be brought to his knees by the likes of Xander Harris?

He watched, alarmed, as Xander’s hand moved toward’s Willow’s.

“I know how much I’ve hurt you. I know that it’s my fault - what happened to you, what happened to Cordelia. But Will, you’re my best friend and I’m just hoping...begging you...can you forgive me?”

How much one word could change the course of history, or at least the course of Angel’s life. Willow’s hand had stayed near Xander’s until he’d uttered that one fatal, blessed word: Cordelia. The moment it was spoken, Willow had retreated, leaning back against Angel, seeking comfort from his nearness. It was all he could do not to crow his delight, though he hated that it was bought at the cost of Willow’s peace of mind.

Xander, too, noticed her withdrawal, though Angel wasn’t sure the boy guessed the reason.

Angel arose. “Xander, I think you’ve said enough for today. You can see that Willow needs her rest.”

To his credit, at least by Angel’s way of thinking, Xander appeared to agree. He stood up and walked towards the door.

“I’ll come back tomorrow, okay, Will?”

Willow’s expression changed not one whit and Xander was obviously discouraged. Still, it didn’t stop the boy from reiterating his intentions. “See you then.”

Angel followed him as he left the room. The walk downstairs was a miraculously silent one, the boy too obviously unsettled by his own emotions and mortified at having unburdened himself in front of Angel to say a word to him. At least, that is, until they reached the front door. As he stepped outside, Xander spoke, his voice heavy with fatigue, but nonetheless ominous.

“I’ll be back, Deadboy. You can count on it. She’s my best friend. I might not have done such a great job of proving it so far, but that’s going to change. And once she realizes that I’m here for her, she’s not going to need you anymore.”

There were so many things Angel wanted to say that he nearly bit through his tongue stifling them, but he let the boy have the last word, let him leave thinking he had the upper hand, let him leave without any idea of just how much of a fight he was truly in for. He knew that was the best thing to do, hard as it was. Giving the boy the illusion of winning the battle would go a long way towards winning Angel the war. So he let Xander walk away, turned on his heel, and made his way back upstairs to Willow’s room.

She was staring off into space and Angel knew she was lost in the memories that Xander had reawakened. Those horrible memories of the night Cordelia had died. He took her in his arms.

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry he upset you. I should have told him to leave. I had no idea he intended to put you through this.”

She held him close, returning his embrace, and Angel felt something akin to ecstasy, despite her pain. She needed him, needed him more than any of her friends, needed him to save her _from_ her friends. He lost himself in her warmth, her scent, her nearness.

The unaccustomed ring of his cellular phone shattered the moment and Angel gave silent thanks it had not rung while Xander was still about. He’d forgotten to remove it from the drawer in the bedside table. The call had to be important. Only one person had his phone number: the man who Angel was counting on to make his dreams for the future come true. He extricated himself reluctantly from Willow’s arms.

“I have to take that call, sweetling. It’s important.”

He went to the drawer and pulled out the phone, quickly pushing the button to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Angelus? I have excellent news.”

“Yes?”

“The arrangements have all been made. Travel, transferring your accounts, the necessary documents, the houses - everything.”

“That _is_ excellent news.” He kept his tone businesslike. The man on the other end of the line, after all, worked for a soulless killer, a demon.

“Tomorrow night at 11:30, a limousine will be there to take you to the airport. From there, a private plane will take you to Montreal, where you’ll board another plane which will take you to Berlin. I trust that meets with your approval.”

“It does.” While he maintained the same calm tone of voice, he couldn’t stop himself from grinning and Willow looked at him curiously. He held up one finger, signaling her that he would explain in a moment.

“As you requested, I’ve made sure the charter company is an exceptionally discreet one and that you and your companion will not be traveling to any cities you have been known to favour in the past.”

“Very good. We’ll be ready tomorrow night then. I expect there won’t be any _unforeseen_ complications?” The tone in his voice held a hint of menace, just as Angelus would have done.

“No, indeed, sir. Every contingency has been planned for, I assure you.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I’m counting on it.” He let his tone convey just what might be in store for the man should he be wrong.

“Yes, sir. You can rely on me”

Angel hung up the phone without another word and turned to Willow.

“I have the most wonderful surprise for you. We’re going on vacation. Somewhere far away where we can both relax and enjoy ourselves. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

He hadn’t been quite sure how she’d react, but he had to admit he’d hoped for delight. Her expression dashed those hopes. However, he chided himself, how enthusiastic could he truly expect her to be in her current state? Reminded just moments ago of his darkest deeds by that insensitive twit, Xander Harris.

He took her by the hand and pulled her down to sit next to him on the bed.

“Sweetling, I know you’re upset right now. So am I. I hate the memories of what happened to you, of what Angelus did to you. But don’t you see? That’s why it’s such a good idea for the two of us to get away right now, to go someplace where we don’t have to think about any of this, where we can just be together, without any reminders of the past.”

There was still a look of concern on her face. Angel hated himself for what he was about to say. He said it anyway.

“It’s just for a couple of weeks. We’ll come back. I promise. And you’ll feel so much better after a nice vacation, the chance to take your mind off of everything that’s happened. You’ll see. You’ll come back feeling better than ever.”

That did it. She believed in him. She trusted him. Now he had the reaction he was looking for, and it was worth every lie. Once they were away, after all, she’d be so caught up in seeing new places, in exploring museums and parks and attending concerts, that she wouldn’t want to return to Sunnydale anyway.

He watched her bounce on her toes, the joyful smile on her face illuminating the room with the glow of her enthusiasm, and it was there, right in front of him, the proof of what he’d lately suspected. This was Willow, whole and entire. She was still Willow. She had never truly been lost.

Oh certainly, the babble, much as he missed it, was gone. But the energy, the bright-eyed fervor with which she had embraced each new experience, even the terrors of aiding the Slayer, was still there. It was just that she’d had to find different ways to express her feelings.

The eager flow of words that had once been her trademark, almost tripping over themselves as they were spoken, was likely stanched forever, dammed up in the furthest oblivion of her psyche by the insurmountable wall of having watched those words turned into thrusts of cock and fang into the body of a girl whose murder had been cynically laid to her account. But Willow’s nature? Her childlike spirit, agile mind, and open heart? Those things were never destroyed, never even broken. They had just lain quiet as she waited for the safety in which to be once more.

He looked at her for a moment with something akin to awe. Once, like everyone else, his perceptions of Willow had been predicated on the belief that she’d succumbed in much the same fashion as Drusilla had. Yet, as he had recently come to realize, those perceptions had been so very wrong. Her mind was no solid thing, instead, it had a plasticine malleability that gave it a supernatural capacity to adapt. He’d suspected as much, it was true, but he hadn’t realized just how accurate his suspicions had been...and just how short they had fallen in terms of understanding just how great the scale and scope of her divergence from the well-worn path of Angelus’ other victims truly was. As if her precocious erudition hadn’t been impressive enough, she’d somehow hidden the core of her being like some precious jewel kept well secreted from the depredations of the most cunning and cruel of thieves. What other marvels lay concealed in the labyrinthine depths of her psyche? One thing was certain - he was going to vastly enjoy finding out.

He pulled her into his arms once more, feeling her smile warm him as much as her body. If it had taken a few lies to get her to this place, what was the harm in that? She loved him. She would forgive him. Once they were far away, she’d see that he had done what was best for the both of them.

He thought about the dreams and about Xander’s words. Foolish boy. He wasn’t going to have the smallest chance at regaining his former place in Willow’s life. Soon, so very soon, Angel and Willow would be well out of Sunnydale, and neither Xander nor any of her other so-called friends would ever be able to take her away from him. His smile matched Willow’s as he continued to hold her close.

  
Tbc...


	11. Chapter Ten

Escape Me Never (Chapter Ten)

  
It was nine-fifteen in the evening and Xander had not come. Angel wasn’t sure if Willow was disappointed. It wasn’t often that he couldn’t read her emotions, but today had been one of those times. She had an aura of anticipation, but Angel couldn’t tell whether it was because they were leaving tonight on their “vacation” or whether it was because she was hoping Xander would walk through the door today as he had promised. He certainly hoped it was the former.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough to worry about, after all. Their bags were packed and tucked away in a downstairs closet, no one but he and Willow were aware that they were going anywhere, but Angel was still nervous that something would happen to throw a spanner in the works. Giles and Jenny were also no-shows so far, but unlike Xander, they were sure to pay a call at the mansion tonight. What if they arrived late enough to encounter the car and driver who would be coming to take him and Willow to the airport?

He was pacing. Two hours and fifteen minutes from now, he and Willow would be on their way to their new life. Two hours and fourteen minutes...was he so unstrung that he was reduced to counting minutes? He could not recall feeling anxiety like this since his human days. He was wiping his hands on his trousers, the ghost of perspiration from centuries past on his palms. That instinct was something he’d thought long gone. Apparently it was not. Amazing how human he could feel while not the least bit human at all. Though he really _shouldn’t_ have been surprised; fear was something even demons experienced.

It was almost a relief when he heard the knock at the door. Truthfully, there was no almost about it. The fact that he could get this last unwelcome encounter out of the way long before the chauffeur would be there was enough to make him thank whatever god answered the prayers of souled vampires.

As he approached the door, however, it occurred to him that there was one thing he hadn’t taken into account. Willow. Would she reveal the news of their imminent departure to her one-time mentors? Of course, she had yet to speak to them during any of their previous visits, but there was always a first time, and there were other ways she could give the game away. If she acted suspiciously, if she seemed so different that it aroused curiosity, if...Angel’s paranoia almost overwhelmed him. If he wasn’t careful, _he_ would be the one who gave the game away.

“Good evening, Jenny. Giles.”

“Good evening, Angel.”

Giles matched him in formality and Angel could hear the unspoken “us” at the end of his name. The man still saw him as a soulless demon - as the enemy. Angel found it provoking, but at the same time, he had to concede that it spoke well of Giles’ intelligence. Angel _was_ , in fact, his foe, at least in all matters pertaining to Willow, though in Angel’s view, it was Giles who was the villain.

“Angel.”

Jenny was terse as usual, her distrust and hatred as constant and dependable as that of her lover. They were so well-matched that Angel felt sorry that their romance was doomed to disaster. Under other circumstances, he would have felt some sympathy, but now? Now he only wished he would be there to see Giles once his lady had gone. Would he find Buffy and her teenage drama a worthwhile trade-off for a warm body to lie next to at night? Angel figured the answer to that question would be no. Just how much scotch would it take to dull the pain?

“Why don’t I go get Willow?”

“Yes, that would be good of you.”

There was that exaggerated formality again. And was that sarcasm Angel detected in the man’s tone? Not that it mattered.

Willow was in the kitchen eating a light meal and Angel went there directly to fetch her. He only hoped she’d keep to her usual habit of silence and not be moved to speak upon realizing that Angel wasn’t informing their visitors of their impending “vacation.”

“Willow? Giles and Jenny are here. They’d like to see you.”

She swallowed the last bite of her sandwich and got up, took his hand, and let him lead her back to the front room. Angel wanted to say something, to caution her, but he didn’t. The risk of being overheard combined with his fear that she might become suspicious of his motives and thus be inspired to speak when she would not have otherwise stilled his tongue. He was going to have to take his chances and hope that everything went well.

“Willow. You look lovely this evening.”

Jenny said that every time she saw her. Angel agreed with her assessment, but still, it rang hollow when the same words were always used and this time Angel fancied he picked up a hint of irritation from the girl he loved. Good job, Jenny. Patronizing and phony is definitely the way to go when trying to win someone over. Willow said nothing, though, simply kept her eyes downcast. She did not let go of his hand.

“How are you feeling tonight?”

If Giles thought he was going to do any better at starting up a conversation than his insincere ladylove, he was sorely mistaken. Willow’s eyes stayed on the floor, her hand in Angel’s, and her tongue silent.

“Willow was eating when you arrived, “ Angel said, feigning an awkward manner and uncertainty of what to say to match theirs. “She’s quite a fan of my cooking.” He looked at Willow in what he hoped was a fond, fatherly way.

“You seem to have become quite domestic. Do you do windows, too?”

Jenny’s acid tone and undisguised contempt were a bit surprising. Something in her eyes told him she’d tumbled to his disingenuousness, but she’d chosen the wrong way to respond. She’d lost sight of Willow’s feelings, her enmity for him taking over. No matter what name she used, she was Janna Kalderash through and through. He was almost surprised by that, astounded that anyone could hate him more than they could love Willow.

The ring of a cell phone startled him. For a moment he was wondering how he could manage to get away to take the call without arousing suspicion until he realized it wasn’t his phone that was ringing. He quirked an eyebrow as Giles fumbled in the pocket of his jacket, clumsily retrieved the device, and handed it to Jenny as if it were contaminated in some fashion. He was nearly stunned that this rather humourous reminder of Giles’ legendary techno-phobia failed to produce even the hint of a smile on Willow’s face.

He puzzled over Giles having agreed to own such a thing in the first place and realized it had to have been Buffy’s idea. He couldn’t see Jenny trying to force it on the man. She knew his hatred of modern gadgets and she could not have been eager to embrace something which would further cut into the time she had Giles all to herself. No, this had all the earmarks of Buffy wanting to tighten her circle, keep the people she had left closer and more under her thumb than ever. He felt a pang of something akin to pity at how desperate the girl he’d once loved had become. Fear and loneliness could do so much damage.

“Buffy? Yes, yes. I understand. We’ll be right there.” Jenny sounded highly irritated as she spoke to her boyfriend’s charge and Angel strained to keep from grinning, both at her being slapped in the face with a reminder of just who the most important woman in Giles’ life _really_ was and at the fact that the two would soon be beating a hasty retreat.

“Rupert, we have to leave. They’ve identified the demon and they need our help.”

Giles looked distracted, suddenly caught up in his Slayer’s world once more, Willow nearly forgotten as he turned and headed for the door. “I’m sorry we have to leave like this. We’ll be back tomorrow night, Willow. Take care of her, Angel.”

Those last words had none of the implicit threat they usually carried. It was obvious they were rote, Giles’ mind already back at the library. He too, it seemed, had more important concerns than Willow, though Angel grudgingly conceded that it was more than likely that the demon they were rushing off to fight was a danger to human lives and in need of immediate slaying.

Jenny seemed far more reluctant to leave, but she had no choice, so she followed Giles to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Willow. And we’ll spend more time together.” Now _her_ words carried the hint of a threat, as they always did, Jenny’s mind at least still focused on her battle with Angel, if not on the girl who was the ostensible reason for it.

With that parting shot, they were gone, hurrying to their car in silence. Angel listened as the Citroen pulled away, realizing that their hasty conge was even more of a godsend then he’d initially thought. It was an alibi. Willow could hardly wonder why he hadn’t discussed their plans when Giles and Jenny hadn’t been there long enough to have more than the barest conversation.

A look at Willow’s face, however, told him she wasn’t even thinking about the trip and what he hadn’t told their visitors. No, her eyes had a wounded, faraway look, a look that Angel almost wished those two could see, a look that proclaimed that Willow was hardly the vacant creature Jenny, in particular, assumed her to be. There were memories behind those eyes. Memories of being shunted aside and brushed off as an inconsequential thing. He felt connected to her again, her pain reaching out to him, calling to him. His embrace could offer her asylum, so he went to her and took her in his arms, murmuring softly to her, not to defend the thoughtless fools who’d just departed, but to distract her.

“Alone at last.” He felt her tentative smile against his chest, right over where his heart lay still and quiet, yet somehow so full. How much a cold, dead heart could be warmed to life by love. “We have two hours ‘til we have to leave. Whatever shall we do with all that time?”

Her smile grew broader as she lifted her head and gazed up into his face, gratitude and longing shining from her eyes. She needed him, needed to know that she was cherished and wanted. That to someone in the world, she _was_ the world. In one swift move, he picked her up and made his way upstairs, her surprised squeal eliciting a kiss as he made his way back to their bedroom, the feel of her in his arms conjuring images of a brave knight rescuing a maiden fair.

  
 _There were advantages sometimes to being a souled vampire desirous of avoiding notice, to taking the tunnels even when the streets were dark and safe for his kind. Take tonight for instance. If he hadn’t come on his errand into the nearly deserted high school from far below ground, he never would have smelled it. Gas. And at the rate it was leaking, the school could easily be blown up in a matter of minutes, taking Buffy and her friends with it. Good thing he was right near the boiler room. Now another advantage of his would come into play._

Wait. Mingled with the stifling odor of the gas, he could pick up three familiar scents. He could also hear the sound of three heartbeats slowing into the rhythm of an unconsciousness that would soon become permanent. There was a faint pounding on the inside of the door. Angel yanked it open.

The moment he did, Giles tumbled out at his feet. For a moment, Angel found himself extremely vexed with the man. It took a special kind of selfishness for him to remain closest to the last remaining source of fresh air. No time for that, though; there were two other lives at stake. One of which was actually worth saving. He dragged Giles quickly out of the room, not bothering with excessive politesse.

“C’mon.” He pulled the man’s body out of the doorway, dumping him unceremoniously to the ground once more. He had more important things to do than fuss over Rupert Giles.

His eyes immediately sought out Willow. She wasn’t responding to the noise and he was terrified that he might have been too late. Damn Giles. Whatever happened to chivalry? His spot by the door might have been better taken by Willow, whose lighter body weight also made her more susceptible to the fumes than he was.

Angel got to her in a flash, checked her pulse and carried her hastily from the room, not thinking about Xander for a moment, though he was depressed to see that Giles had gotten him out even before Angel emerged bearing Willow’s slight form.

Willow lay cradled against him, like a child. Somehow, though, the feelings she was evoking in him were none too innocent. He was almost glad that the presence of the others made it necessary for him to find the strength to resist temptation and set her on her feet. The feel of her in his arms was almost *too* pleasurable. Xander’s voice, blessedly, took his focus off the still-unconscious girl leaning against him.

“What happened?”

As if Angel should know. Logic chided Angel with the fact of Xander’s near death fogging his memories, but he had no real inclination to make any allowances at all for the boy. Was he unreasonable and childish in that regard? Perhaps. But Xander’s grating personality was more than sufficient excuse.

“You tell me.”

“I’m up, mom.” With those mumbled words, Willow came adorably awake. Angel’s arm remained around her.

“Hi. What do you want?”

Typical. He saves the boy’s miserable excuse for a life and Xander *still* treats him like dirt. All the dangerous creatures lurking in Sunnydale...couldn’t *one* of them do the world a favour? If it weren’t for Willow having been one of those trapped in the boiler room, Angel wondered if he would have even bothered to save the day.

Yeah.

He would have.

Sometimes he really hated having a soul.

“I brought you the Codex.” He handed the ancient volume to Giles and watched as Giles groped the book in an almost disturbing way, a gleam in his eyes that was almost... Okay, he got that the guy was a Watcher *and* a librarian, but geez did he ever need to get out more. And that was coming from someone who’d been living in alleys and eating rats for eighty years.

“I came in through the basement. I smelled the gas.”

“Y-y-yes w-well shut it off. Otherwise th-the whole building will go up.”

This was getting way too creepy. Giles was stuttering as if he’d just been caught reading Playboy. Angel decided that was something best left unthought about, though he did worry a bit about what might be in store for that Codex...

“I’ll get it. It’s not like I need the oxygen.”

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

With that, Giles hustled Xander and Willow out of the basement.

For a moment that went on just a bit too long, Angel stared after them. No, not them. *Her*. Then he went into the boiler room to turn off the gas - but not without taking one last look at the retreating girl. Would it have been such a bad thing after eighty years of penance if circumstances had made it necessary for him to carry Willow home?

After all this time, he _was_ carrying Willow home. She depended on him, loved him - in all truth, _he_ was her home, his arms the walls that would keep her forever safe. She would be all the happier once they were far away from a town filled with painful memories of being neglected and ignored, belittled and disregarded. From now on, the only thing she would know was a life of being cherished, worshipped, and adored.

He entered the bedroom, stopping to take in his surroundings. This would be the last time he would ever make love to Willow in this bed. He almost wished they could take it with them, wished he didn’t have to leave it behind, with its memories of the first time he’d ever made love to her and every moment they’d lain together thereafter. But he carried those memories in his heart, he reminded himself, a far surer keep than wood and fabric and coils could ever be.

Her lips were against his neck and something inside him burst. This small act of initiative confirming his wildest hopes about Willow’s feelings for him. There had been no wishful thinking on his part - Willow’s desire for him was as real as his own.

He moaned, letting her know how much he enjoyed what she was doing, and she grew bolder, her hands winding into his hair, her mouth finding his. This was not going to be slow or languorous. Angel set her down.

“Saucy minx,” he chided playfully, swatting her bottom. “You’d better take care of...” He let the words trail off, knowing Willow was still shy enough to prefer that he not discuss her menstruation. He didn’t mind her modesty in the least, in fact, he was glad that, after everything Angelus had done to her, she’d been able to hold onto it. And after all, it didn’t prevent her from allowing him to taste her.

It was only a moment later that she emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in the familiar towel, gingerly walking towards the bed. But this time, there was no hesitancy when she removed it and spread it out on the duvet, laying herself on it like a banquet upon which he might feast. Oh, how he wanted to do just that. But he also realized that tonight was about Willow, and what she wanted was him inside her, to feel that she was sharing something with him. She didn’t understand what tasting her blood did for him. What human could? It was something he himself would have been hard pressed to explain. So he would forgo that pleasure tonight. There would be time for that in the months to come. Plenty of time.

“So beautiful, “ he purred.

She smiled and he was lost. He stripped quickly and joined her on the bed, covering her body with his own, his kisses and caresses soon readying her for his entry. He marveled at the way every time he was with her, it still felt so amazingly perfect and new, as if he were taking her for the very first time. Her heat, her scent, the sound of her cries urging him on - he was drowning in her, consumed by her, there was nothing in the world but the two of them.

Until he heard the voice from the doorway.

“You bastard! What the hell are you doing to her?”

He’d been warned. Twice, in his dreams, Xander had in some way intruded on his intimacy with Willow, had come between them. Yet, in spite of this foretelling, Angel hadn’t stopped it from happening.

In a flash, Angel was away from Willow and his teeth were in Xander’s throat. His predator’s instincts may have failed miserably at keeping him aware of what was happening in his house until the perimeter was breached, but they didn’t fail him now. The boy hadn’t even had time to _think_ of escape. Angel hadn’t thought at all.

He was brought out of his feral state by the sound of Willow’s scream.

“Angel! No!”

It was enough. His fangs retracted as if of their own volition and Angel hastily checked for a pulse as he listened for a heartbeat. Good. He hadn’t drained him. The boy was alive. Unconscious, but alive.

“He’s alright, Willow. I swear. Come here and see for yourself.”

He wanted to stake himself. The look of terror and anguish on Willow’s face...a look that was there because of _him_...it was more painful than any torment he’d ever endured.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I know what it looked like. But him walking in on us like this, I was afraid of what he would do. I was just immobilizing him. I didn’t think about how you’d see it. I’m so sorry.”

Tiny fib there. Well, perhaps not so tiny. But the look in his eyes held all his love for her and his pain at having hurt her and it was doing the trick. With the towel once again wrapped around her, Willow was approaching him - cautiously, but still approaching. He held Xander’s arm up so she could check his pulse, sighing in relief when he could tell that she realized her old friend was still alive. She refused to meet his eyes.

“I need to take him downstairs, Willow.”

There was the fear again. She knew what he meant. That he didn’t mean the main floor. He made to calm her again.

“Just so I can reason with him. I won’t hurt him, Willow. You have my word. I swear to you that I will not harm him. But I can’t just let him leave. You know what will happen if he goes to Buffy or Giles or Jenny right now. They’ll do their best to stake me. At the very least they will take you away and make sure I never see you again. I couldn’t bear that. Could you?”

Willow hesitated for a moment and Angel felt as if his world was about to shatter in a million pieces. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, she spoke..

“No.” Her voice was soft and tinged with heartbreaking uncertainty, but she’d said it and Angel could almost feel his heart beat once more.

“I’ll take him downstairs. You get dressed, okay? Then I’ll come back for you and we’ll go talk to him together.”

Willow nodded, but still her eyes would not catch his. It hurt, but he would have to fix it after taking care of the intruder.

Angel hoisted the boy over his shoulder and carried him out the door and down the stairs. Suddenly conscious of his nudity, he wondered what Xander would say if he were to awaken right now. He almost laughed.

He reached the library quickly. Angelus had always been one for the over-the-top gesture and the “dungeon” certainly qualified...including the fact that the door to the stairs leading down to it was opened by pulling out the copy of _The Sun Also Rises_ on the third shelf. His demon’s lack of subtlety was almost embarrassing.

He opened the door and was down the stairs in a trice, shaking his head at the cliched look of the place. Really...chains hanging from the ceiling? Moist stone walls? It looked like the set of a bad movie. But it was better than nothing. The metal chair in the center of the room would be the perfect place to restrain Xander. Thank heavens the “toy chest” on the far wall contained rope. Willow would not take too kindly to Xander being chained and shackled.

For a souled vampire, he hadn’t lost the knack of securing a prisoner. Xander was soon tied up in a fashion that might well restrain even a Slayer. Those knots would make any Eagle Scout sob in envy. He appraised Xander _de haut en bas_ , nodded his head approvingly at his own handiwork, and went back upstairs. The boy would likely have regained what passed for his faculties by the time he and Willow returned. In Angel’s mind, a plan was swiftly forming...

Time was ticking by, the minutes that had seemed like hours a short while ago were now passing like seconds. On his way back to the bedroom, Angel retrieved their luggage from the closet and put it by the front door. Then he went upstairs to get dressed.

“He should be awake by the time we get back downstairs. Let me just put something on. I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to talk to Xander like this,” he indicated his nudity and smiled, hoping she’d see the levity in that idea. The corners of her mouth turned up only slightly, but at least it was something. Angel clothed himself apace, then sat on the bed, motioning for Willow to sit beside him.

“There’s something we need to discuss first.” He took her hand. She didn’t pull it away. “Willow, we’ll have to stay away a bit longer than I had planned.” Willow looked agitated and Angel struggled to reassure her. “We’ll come back, sweetheart. But with Xander finding us like that...” She blushed and Angel continued. “We’ll have to give everyone a chance to calm down, that’s all.”

She wasn’t convinced. In fact, there was something in her mien that made Angel fear that he might have to force her to leave with him. He didn’t want to do that, though inside, while he hated himself for it, he knew that he would if it was unavoidable. He made a last ditch effort to win her over.

“Willow, I know Xander is your oldest friend. I know how much he and the others mean to you. But think about it? How much do they really care about you? When you were Angelus’ prisoner, did they risk their lives to save you? And now? Do they ever put you first? Xander stayed away for weeks because seeing you made _him_ feel bad. Is that what a true friend would do? Would you have done that in his place? I know you wouldn’t. You would have been with him every day.” Angel paused, gauging Willow’s reaction. She was obviously upset, considering his words carefully, so he continued. “The others are just the same. Jenny and Giles treat you like a pet, talk to you like a feeble-minded child, rush off at a moment’s notice. And Buffy - Buffy hasn’t been to see you since I told her there was no hope for us to get back together. How good of friends have any of them been?”

There were tears in Willow’s eyes now; he wished he hadn’t had to hurt her like that. But there was no other way. She had to be made to see.

He put his arm around her. “Willow, I love you. I love you so much. You know that. I am just trying to do what’s best for you and for us. We won’t be gone forever. You’ll see, it will do them a lot of good to miss you, to learn just how empty their lives are without you here. Then they’ll be the kind of friends you deserve.”

Willow’s expression relaxed, though her tears still fell, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. She trusted him. He had won.

“I’m going to leave Xander here, tied up.” The panic welled up again, but Angel was ready to head it off before it could build and undo what he just accomplished. “It’s alright, sweetling. I’m going to call Giles and tell him where to find Xander. It’s just that this will buy us enough time to catch our flight. I promised you I wouldn’t harm Xander and I won’t. I’ve always kept my promises, haven’t I?”

She nodded.

“Now, let’s go say goodbye to him. Let him see that we love each other. I know he won’t see reason today. But maybe someday he’ll wake up and remember the example you’ve always set as a friend and he’ll just want you to be happy.” And someday pigs would soar like eagles on shiny golden wings. But Willow was the eternal optimist and Angel could see a glimmer of hope light like a candle flame in her eyes.

He took her hand as they stood, leading her out of the room and down to the room where Xander was waiting. He checked his watch. It was now eleven-ten.

The boy was awake when he and Willow entered the room, struggling against his bonds as if he actually believed he had a chance of escape. He was as cliched and ridiculous as the room itself. A perfect fit.

“Willow?” Xander was pleading, obviously counting on his best friend to free him. In the argot of his fellow teens: As if.

Willow said nothing, her eyes moving from him to Angel to the walls, unable to fix on anything.

“Willow, you’ve got to get me out of here.” And here Angel thought Angelus had cornered the market on corny. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Deadboy, but you won’t get away with this.” And the hackneyed lines kept on coming, falling from the boy’s lips like manna from B-movie heaven.

But as much as it might amuse him to see just how many clunkers Xander could actually spew forth, time was running short. At the risk of sounding every bit as dully aphoristic as the boy, Angel cut to the chase.

“I love Willow, Xander, and she loves me.”

“You love her? You’re a demon. A demon who kidnapped and raped her. I don’t buy for a second that the soul makes you any different from every other bloodsucking monster out there. But while we’re talking about souls, what about the fact that you had no problem risking losing your soul again by forcing yourself on a girl you broke and turned into a pathetic shell?”

Angel could feel Willow stiffen beside him. Good one, Xander. Why did everyone always act as if Willow couldn’t understand a word they said if they weren’t speaking directly to her? Sadly, he realized that this was simply the logical outgrowth of the way her friends had treated her even before she’d been Angelus' prisoner. It was only that now it was taken to an extreme. Time to clue the boy in.

“She understands what you’re saying, Xander.” His tongue ached to say ‘moron’ but he knew he had to take the high road to reinforce the difference between himself and the idiotic boy. “And as for my soul, seems Jenny’s been keeping secrets. Old habits must die hard. There’s no clause anymore. Willow makes me happier than I’ve ever been, and I still have my soul.” He turned to his girl and kissed her softly.

“Will. You don’t believe this crap, do you? He’s lying. He can’t have Buffy, so he’s using you. He knows that you’re still too damaged to know any better.”

There were tears now in Willow’s eyes. She couldn’t believe that’s how the boy she’d once loved saw her.

Angel put a stop to it. He didn’t want Willow in any more pain. Besides, it was time to get upstairs. The driver would be there any minute now.

“I can’t believe after all the years you’ve known her, you don’t see how special she is. She’s beautiful, sweet, caring, smart...she means more to me than Buffy ever did, more than I ever thought anyone _could_ mean to me. Maybe someday you’ll realize just what you passed over. I’ll pity you when that happens.”

He took Willow’s hand and turned around, walking towards the door. His hatred for Xander burned brighter than ever. Still, he’d made a promise.

“We’re leaving town for awhile. I’ll call Giles and let him know where you are.” Xander looked at him in total disbelief. “I promised Willow.” No change. Why was Angel not surprised?

Willow looked at her old friend, tears still swimming in her eyes. “Goodbye, Xander," she said softly. “You’ll be okay.”

And with that, Angel guided Willow out of the room, closing the door behind him. As he did so, Xander called after them.

“Willow! Willow, don’t leave me.”

Then the door locked behind them and the boy’s voice disappeared. Soundproofing - another cliche. He kept his arm around her, the scent of her tears almost overpowering as they reached the stairs.

They made their way silently to the library. Angel took his cell phone out of his pocket, went to the desk and got out his phone book. Easier to make a phone call when you have the number. He programmed it into the phone’s memory. Willow watched him, some of the tension leaving her as she saw that he was keeping up his end of the bargain. She dried her eyes with her sleeve

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. It was the driver; something about the knock was different from that of anyone he knew. He ushered Willow back to the front room and answered the door, schooling his expression into the arrogant insouciance the man would no doubt be expecting.

He wasn’t disappointed in his solicitor’s choice of chauffeur. A silver-haired fellow of slightly adipose physique attired in elegant livery, the driver exuded an aura of discretion and circumspection. Angel fractionally relaxed, sensing that there was no danger of any information about their departure and destination being revealed by this man.

“I’ll take the bags to the car, sir.” The voice was soft, but assured. The sort of efficient and inobtrusive tone one formerly heard from a well-trained butler. It brought back memories of a more genteel time.

He let the man take care of the luggage, then he and Willow followed him out to the limousine. Once again, his solicitor had done well. Angel hated the gaudiness of the modern stretch limo, much too gauche and _nouveau riche_ for his liking. The car taking him and Willow to the airport was a Rolls Royce, far more to Angel’s taste.

In short order, they were comfortably ensconced in the back seat, silence all ‘round as the car made its way to the main road and out toward the airport. After a few minutes, Angel took the cell phone from his pocket, Willow’s eyes lighting up with her gratitude as he did. He pushed the button and listened as the number was dialed and the phone at the other end rang. On the second ring, it was picked up.

“Giles? This is Angel. I have something important to tell you. Willow and I are leaving town. Giles, just shut up for a minute. Because right now you have something else to worry about. Xander is tied up in a room under the mansion and I suggest you go there first and free him. The only way to get to the room is by pulling out one of the books in the library. I’d have everyone go there with you to help out because it might take you awhile to find which one and he’s not going to get out of that room on his own. Goodbye, Giles.”

As he spoke, Angel could hear the cheery recorded voice of the local theatre employee as she rattled off the showtimes and ticket prices of the current feature, unaware of a word Angel said. After saying goodbye, he hung up the phone and put the phone back in his pocket, basking in the glow of Willow’s smile as she nestled against him. He had kept his promise, he reasoned, at least the letter of it. It wasn’t as if _he_ had killed the boy. Thirst and starvation would do that.

At any rate, soon they would be far away, never to return. He would build a life for Willow that was so idyllic she would never want to leave it behind to return to pathetic Sunnydale and her useless _amis manque_. She would forget all about them, he was certain of it.

How much time, he wondered, would it take before Xander realized that no one would be coming to rescue him?

The car proceeded towards its destination. Angel kissed the top of Willow’s head, pillowed against his shoulder, and gazed out the tinted windows. He could see the lights of the airport. They shone like the future.

  
The End.


End file.
